Analysis of Google Trends to monitor new psychoactive substance. Is there an added value?

The past decade has seen an increase in the development and availability of a broad category of drugs, known as new psychoactive substances (NPS). NPS are challenging for public health authorities, therefore the two major drug monitoring bodies - the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) - have implemented the EU Early Warning System (EWS) and Early Warning Advisory (EWA), respectively. While these monitoring systems are informative, it is difficult to keep up with the constant and rapid developmental rate of NPS.

Emergence, Diversity, and Control of New Psychoactive Substances: A Global Perspective.

The phenomenon of new psychoactive substances (NPS), which came to the attention of the wider international community at the beginning of the 2010s, has been unprecedented in terms of the sheer number of substances, their rate of emergence, chemical diversity, and range of pharmacological effects. In particular, the chemical diversity has been a challenge to promoting a better understanding of the NPS market - a fundamental requirement for effective policy decisions and interventions. This manuscript highlights the significant chemical diversity of NPS and describes an alternative, complementary, and pragmatic classification based on pharmacological effects, which aligns NPS to traditional controlled drugs and enhances understanding of the phenomenon.

Toxicology in international drug control-Prioritizing the most harmful, persistent and prevalent substances.

The nature of the global drugs market has evolved rapidly and has become more complex with the emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS), some of which have been associated with increased abuse, hospital emergency admissions and sometimes fatalities. NPS are characterized by geographic heterogeneity, with some only transient in nature and others not satisfying the criteria for harm required for international control. Consequently, a pragmatic response of the international community is to prioritize the most harmful, persistent and prevalent substances for action - an objective, which is hampered by the paucity of data on harms.