Discriminative Characteristics of Marginalised Novel Psychoactive Users: a Transnational Study

Abstract

New psychoactive substances (NPS) continue to be considered as a major public health concern in many European countries. The study was implemented within the framework of a transnational project of six European countries (Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal). Our aim here is to report on the distinct and differentiating characteristics of marginalised NPS users. Three subgroups of a total of 3023 adult NPS users (socially marginalised, night life, online community) were examined regarding their sociodemographic characteristics, substance use, and external motives towards NPS use. Poland and Hungary reported higher rates of NPS use in comparison to traditional controlled drugs. The external/contextual motives did not play a central role in the background of NPS use, the least important motives were alleged legality and non-detectability of these substances. Marginalised (defined as those accessing low threshold harm reduction services) users' substance use patterns are different from the other two groups in terms of showing more intense and riskier drug use. The most important variables which contributed to be categorised as a marginalised NPS user were lower level education, being older, having an unfavourable labour market position and using drugs intravenously. Contextual motives did not play a decisive role in being categorised as a marginalised user when drug use pattern was controlled. These identified discriminative features of marginalised drug users should inform policy makers to develop and implement tailor-made interventions targeting this user group to successfully tackle the elevated public health concerns associated with NPS use.

Motives for using new psychoactive substances in three groups of Polish users: nightlife, marginalised and active on the In

“…These results are consistent with those obtained in other studies conducted in Poland, where it was shown that the legality or assessment of addictive properties does not matter for the majority of users [22]. However, our results, differ from the findings from other countries, e.g., studies of Barratt et al [20] and Soussan and Kjellgren [21,27], where the alleged legality, price, and high availability of the NSP were presented as important motives for the substance use.…”

“…The research by Soussan and Kjellgren [21,27] shows that the desire to feel pleasure is one of the most common motives for using new psychoactive substances. We obtained similar results in our study.…”

Deaths from novel psychoactive substances in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: Evaluating the impact of the UK psychoactive substances act 2016

“…Indeed, following the control of many SCRA compounds as class B substances under the MDA or under the PSA, SCRA use in the general population was observed to decline (Blackman and Bradley, 2017). However, significant prevalence in some vulnerable sub-groups remains, particularly homeless individuals and those imprisoned who continue to use SCRAs due to their accessibility and difficulty in analytical detection (Blackman and Bradley, 2017;Brunt et al, 2017;Felvinczi et al, 2020;Ford and Berg, 2018;Norman et al, 2020;Peacock et al, 2019;Scourfield et al, 2019;Weinstein et al, 2017). Indeed, a major driver for SCRA use is their lack of odour during consumption, and lack of appearance on standard drug screens -factors that are well documented in the use of cannabis itself (Gray et al, 2021).…”

Taking the cat-and-mouse game to the next level: different perspectives on the introduction of the German New Psychoactive Substances Act

“…Another group of users consists of people who—often because of their criminal past or in an addiction care context—are subjected to regular drug testing and use NPS due to their poor detectability [ 7 ]. NPS users also increasingly include people engaged in highly problematic drug use, often experiencing homelessness, for whom the high potency and relatively low price of these substances are usually the decisive factors for use [ 5 – 7 , 10 , 11 ]. On top of this, a growing number of people use NPS unintentionally.…”