New psychoactive substances in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

According to the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (2015), ‘there has been an unprecedented increase in the number, type and availability of new psychoactive substances [NPS] in Europe’. This is particularly true in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where anecdotal reports indicate NPS use is growing, creating new challenges for health and drug services.

This webinar will present the findings of the first detailed multi-country study of NPS use and markets in the region.

The study examined the use of NPS and the harm reduction response in eight Eurasian countries: Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania. The aim was to identify current patterns of NPS use and related harms in each country through recording the perspectives and lived experience of people who use drugs and people who provide harm reduction services in order to inform the harm reduction response. The research was conducted jointly between the Swansea University and the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association between April 2019—December 2020, and funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund.

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