The police lab identified a total of 90 new drugs, which in the general scheme of psychoactive substances is “not very expressive” on the Portuguese market, although online drug sales make it difficult to monitor.
The phenomenon related to such substances is thought to have decreased significantly since the closure of smartshop stores in 2013 – retail establishments that specialise in the sales of psychoactive substances and related paraphernalia – but it is nonetheless worrying, experts say.
According to data from the study ‘New Psychoactive Substances in Portugal, Trendspotter Methodology / Final Report, 2018’, which cites the LPC, last year 16 different synthetic cannabinoids (one more than in 2016) and 26 different synthetic cathinones (15 more cocaine-like stimulants than the previous year), were identified.
The years 2011 and 2012 saw the peak of new psychoactive substance being seized in Portugal, but since 2015 the number of samples has been slowly increasing again.
In the case of stimulants, for example, there was “an increase in their diversity and availability”.
In total, 90 new psychoactive substances have been identified by the LPC in the last 10 years, but according to the report by the Intervention Service in Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies (SICAD), it does not mean that all were destined for consumption in Portugal.
In addition to those already mentioned, phenylethylamines or synthetic opioids are also in increasing circulation.
Like what is happening in the rest of Europe, in Portugal, “the exponential growth in the number of smartshops was accompanied by the emergence on the market of a growing number of new compounds, namely of synthetic origin, mostly made in China and India and more potent from a psychoactive perspective”, the report explained.
Serious cases of hospital admissions have occurred, and it is suspected that deaths are also related to these drugs.
With the closure of the smartshops in 2013, the situation improved, but new psychoactive substances continue to emerge and consumption has not disappeared, largely because they are still available on the darknet, the report warns.
Vasco Calado, one of the report’s authors, told newspaper Diário de Notícias: “With regard to 2013 [when smartshops were banned], consumption certainly declined. However, the closure of the stores caused the phenomenon to cross over to the online black market and it is much more difficult to be monitored there”.