International Day Against Drug Abuse
and Illicit Trafficking, 26 June 2017
This day is an expression of the determination to strengthen action and cooperation to achieve the goal of an international society free of drug abuse.
To underline this activity we present some outcomes of cooperation.
I-TREND Project: Internet tools for researching new drugs in Europe
The project involved 4 other European partners: CUNI University in the Czech Republic, the TRIMBOS Institute in the Netherlands, SWPS University in Poland, and LJMU in the United Kingdom. The overarching goal of the I-TREND project (2013-2015) was to help prevent health and social harms linked to New/Novel Psychoactive Substances, or ‘New Synthetic Drugs’ (NPS), while also informing the response to emerging risks.
To date, information about the NPS (New Synthetic Drugs) phenomenon has been collected through traditional information systems on drugs and drug addiction, such as data on drug seizures and hospital treatment demands, monitoring in a recreational settings etc..
To-better understand the current risks and challenges associated with NPS, there was a need for new monitoring methods.
I-TREND project encountered the following challenges to implementation:
- Construct a common workable definition of NPS for varied national contexts
- Develop experimental methodologies and automated data collection via the Internet
- Face legal issues linked to the exchange of substance samples