The 21st century is the era of the 'designer drug'. Although certain hard drugs, and some lighter ones are very much on the market, the new scourge comes from chemical compounds made in much the same way as pharmaceuticals, with strange names as 'incense' or 'spice', that are causing the worldwide drug agencies to admit the mounting problem.
The new compounds, some of them completely unknown, are very dangerous, and pose much greater risks than conventional drugs. Most of them are actually legal drugs, like Oxycodone and other pain killers.
Many of them, since they are not known, and not classified in the Drug registers as illegal substances, so they can be sold openly on the internet, and because they have never been tested, their effect on the human body is not known. They can be, therefore, unusually dangerous.
In just three years new psychoactive substances on the market skyrocketed from 166 to 251, although overall drug consumption overall has stayed the same. In the US, the greater number of drug consumers is in students.
The drugs furthermore do not have localized distribution, but are being sold worldwide, indicating a sophisticated and wide reaching narcotrafficking network.
In 60% of countries, the drugs most abused has now shifted to prescription drugs, such as pain killers and sedatives. Ecstasy and Meth markets have also grown.
What is also troubling is that Africa is starting to become an important drug trafficking area. Drugs are ferried here from Afghanistan and then routed to Africa, where the couriers then smuggle them to Europe and other localities.
Afghanistan, still in the transition phase of a world class conflict, is producing three quarters of the world's opium.
Source : Al Jazeera / 6.26.13
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