Abstract
The main objective of the paper is to explain, compare and conclude the effect on the new psychoactive substances (NPS) market brought by new and innovative responses to regulate the NPS (mostly between 2010 and 2014) in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. Countries where NPS problem reached the peak, the traditional response or simply substance scheduling did not work. Since the NPS do not fall under market regulations, also the response to the problem was innovative stepping out of the existing system (for example, temporary prohibition in Poland, Latvia). Moreover, a political and social pressure has been a factor to speed up the development of new regulations, sometime affecting the quality. Seemingly harsh sanctions and immediate reaction are main elements to close the NPS street shops. Meanwhile this approach hasn’t caused a step back for chemical industry or science. Still is open question if national regulations against NPS market are fully enough. NPS market reacts very quickly for changing and only very strong and fast reaction from the institutional level seems to be effectiveness. Although NPS market differs in each country, study shows that harsh sanctions such as criminal liability and immediate reaction significantly decrease the availability of NPS, and thus contribute in decreasing acute health problems and prevalence. It was observed that at the time when stricter measure came into force, hospital emergencies were increased (Poland, Romania and in same extent Latvia).
Highlights
The study focuses on various regulatory approaches introduced in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania, with a more in-depth research on situations in Latvia and Poland
–– Temporary ban of new psychoactive substances (NPS) defines that the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Latvia may take a decision regarding imposing a ban or restriction for up to 12 months on the manufacturing, acquisition, storage, transportation, forwarding or distribution of NPS or their preparations that are not included in the lists of controlled substances in Latvia, but regarding which information has been received from the Early Warning System or a conclusion of a forensic expert institution regarding
Since the NPS do not fall under market regulations, the response to the problem was innovative stepping out of the existing system
Summary
The study focuses on various regulatory approaches introduced (mostly between 2010 and 2014) in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania, with a more in-depth research on situations in Latvia and Poland. The main objective is to explain, compare and conclude the effect on the new psychoactive substances (NPS) market brought by new and innovative responses to regulate the NPS. The subject of the study is the NPS market – a place where seller meets buyer and exchange their goods. NPS became a major problem for the drug control systems as the NPS market was developing rapidly and offering increasingly more new substances. Most the countries which encountered the NPS problem introduced regulations aimed to delegalize such substances (New psychoactive..., 2016European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and Eurojust, 2016), except New Zealand, which legalized them for a short time (Rychert, Wilkins, 2015). The control systems which delegalized individual substances proved to be too slow and ineffective. Solutions intended to delegalize the whole groups of substances were introduced
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