Transcript Read the Hungarian Civil Liberty Union`s

NEW PSYCHOACTIVE
SUBSTANCES –
POLICY RESPONSES AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Peter Sarosi
Drug Policy Program Director
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union
Qualitative Study on NPS in 5
countries
 Aim: to assess how professionals
and affected communities
perceive 1) the trends in NPS
use and related harms 2) the
impact of existing policy
responses to the NPS
phenomenon 3) the best
possible policy responses
 We asked our national NGO
partners to identify 20
stakeholders with wide
professional backgrounds
 Public health and social service
providers, law enforcement
professionals, drug users and
club owners
 103 phone interviews in 5
countries – wide variety of
stakeholders have been
interviewed
Drug use patterns
Recreational/club drug use
(mostly situational)
Dependent use pattern
(daily)
 Young, educated, urban males
with access to Internet

Young or middle aged men, low class,
uneducated, unemployed, marginalized
 Experimenters

Experienced heroin/amphetamine
users/methadone clients
 Major route of use: smoking or
snorting

Major route of use: injecting
 Risks: psychotic episodes,
overdose, aggressive behavior,
unprotected sex, HCV

More frequent injecting - needle
sharing, rapidly deteriorating health
condition, aggressive behavior,
paranoia, psychosis
 Serbia, Portugal: only this pattern

Romania, Poland, Hungary: this pattern
is very prevalent
Why the patterns differ so much
across countries?
 Availability of classical
drugs
 Criminalization of drug
users
 Access to treatment (OST)
 Social status of drug users
(concentrated,
marginalized Roma
communities)
Race: laws are always one step
behind drug traffickers
Legislative solutions
 Poland: 2010 – Chief Sanitary Inspectorate closed down more
than 1000 shops - amendment of the drug law – introducing
the term “substitute drug”
 Romania: a new law requires shop owners to register all
products containing psychoactive substances – if not, the
authorities can close them
 Hungary: 2012 generic list of new psychoactive substances
was introduced – ban on groups of substances
 Portugal: introduced a temporary list with 160 substances,
banned all commercial activities with these substances
Assessment of policy responses to NPSs
 Media-driven policy making
– no evidence base
 Creation of black
market/replacement of the
problem
 Lack of transparency of the
market
 Missed opportunity to
regulate the market
 No monitoring/evaluation
of control measures
Fear-based mass media
campaigns: is this effective?
Public health concerns
The treatment system is not prepared
to tackle NPS related problems –
designed to treat opiate addiction
NEEDS:



Injecting NPS use – 10-15 injection
per day = growing demand for
sterile equipment
Coincided with financial austerity –
reduced funding for harm
reduction programs
Result: sharing of needles and
infections – consequence: HIV
epidemics (Romania, Greece)
Trainings
Testing of drug samples
Treatment guidelines
(not so) balanced approach
 Controlling substances is
not the solution in itself –
the solution is on the
demand side
 Very few public health and
social responses to the
legal high phenomenon
Policy recommendations
 Reallocating resources on
education and public health
 Research on NPS
 Decriminalizing drug use
 Regulatory options – the
New Zealand model
 Rethinking drug policies
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
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