More potent synthetic substances and new drugs and consumption worry Europe

According to the European Drug Report, the drug landscape is changing in Europe, with more potent synthetic opioid substances becoming available, new product combinations emerging and consumption patterns changing.

These changes pose a growing threat and exacerbate public health problems, according to the “European Drug Report 2024 – Trends and Developments”, published on Tuesday in Lisbon by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

This observatory begins its new mandate on July 2 with strengthened and broader powers, taking into account the new challenges that have arisen in the area of ​​illicit trafficking, consumption and new substances.

The paper, which presents data from the previous year from the 27 European Union (EU) member states, Turkey and Norway, highlights that users are increasingly exposed to a “wider range” of psychoactive substances, “often of high potency or purity”. or in new forms, mixtures and combinations.”

“Due to poorly marketed products (often online and with adulterated substances), consumers may not know what they are consuming and may be exposed to greater health risks, including potentially fatal poisoning.”

This is the case for heroin, which remains the most consumed opioid in Europe and is responsible for a “significant proportion” of health problems, while the European market is becoming “increasingly complex” and contains many synthetic substances of concern.

The report highlights concerns about powerful synthetic opioids that are sometimes misused or mixed with medications and other drugs, as well as MDMA (ecstasy) adulterated with synthetic cathinones (stimulants) and cannabis products adulterated with synthetic cannabinoids.

At the end of 2023, the EMCDDA was monitoring more than 950 new psychoactive substances, 26 of which were reported for the first time in Europe that year.

The message of this year’s report concerns polydrug abuse: two or more psychoactive substances simultaneously or sequentially, often mixed with alcohol.

Europe’s growing opioid problem comes in the form of a “new threat” called nitazenes (a synthetic opioid 40 times more potent than fentanyl and 140 times more potent than morphine) that has spread throughout the world and caused over the past four years. more than 200 deaths a year.

Since 2009, 81 new synthetic opioids have appeared on the European drug market, which are highly potent and carry a huge risk of poisoning and death from overdose.

In 2023, six of the seven new synthetic opioids first reported to the EU Rapid Alert System were nitazenes, the highest amount of this substance reported in a single year.

The report warns that Europe needs to improve its preparedness for potential market changes by ensuring adequate prevention and treatment, including access to medicines and harm reduction services, and ensuring supplies of naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug.