‘No limit’ to new designer drugs

There are “virtually no limitations” to the range of chemicals used to produce so-called new psychoactive drugs, the world’s drug law watchdog has said.

The International Narcotics Control Board said over 600 such substances were known as of last October, 450 of them identified in Europe.

Many of these synthetic drugs, such as 2NBOMe, a-PVP and PMMA, have been linked with numerous fatalities and near fatalities in Ireland, most recently in the death of teenager Alex Ryan in Cork last January.

In its annual report for 2005, the INCB also criticised “simplistic calls” to regulate the supply of illegal drugs and called on the UN General Assembly to reaffirm the existing international conventions controlling drugs.

The General Assembly is holding a special session next month to review the operation of the conventions amid mounting calls from numerous bodies and experts for a move away from criminalising drugs towards harm reduction, including possible decriminalisation or legalisation.

The report said there was an “ever changing spectrum” of new psychoactive substances (NPS), which mimic cannabis, amphetamines, cocaine and ecstasy.

It said a UN early warning system had identified 602 unique NPS by October 2015, a 55% increase on the previous year.

It said by March 2015, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction had identified 450 NPS, including 101 during 2014.

The report said that part of the problem was the growth in “designer precursors” — the raw chemicals used to make NPS — to circumvent legal controls.

“As a result, there are virtually no limitations to the range of chemicals and manufacturing methods that can potentially be employed in illicit manufacture,” it said, and that NPS add “a potentially unlimited number of chemicals”.

In his foreword to the report, INCB president Werner Sipp said the drug law conventions “have proved their value”.

He said compliance with the conventions “means fully implementing” them, but said a “certain flexibility” was permitted.

He said the treaties provide for “alternatives to punishment” and that, in addition to conviction, states can use treatment options.

The report said the conventions had succeeded in “containing” abuse of drugs, pointing out that prevalence was “much lower than that of alcohol or tobacco”.

It said the conventions “do not mandate a ‘war on drugs’”.

The report added that states must adopt the “principle of proportionality” and can give higher priority to the “most violent of actors and those involved in the illicit supply chain”.