Synthetic drugs constitute one of the most significant drug problems worldwide. Along with synthetic drugs, the emergence of the new psychoactive substances (NPS) market over the last years has become a policy challenge and a major international concern. A growing interplay between these new substances and traditional illicit drug markets is being observed, and the synthetic drugs market continues to evolve rapidly.
The Global SMART Updates (GSU)* are biannual publications of the UNODC Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (SMART) Programme, implemented by the UNODC Laboratory and Scientific Section. The GSU is published in English, Spanish and Russian. The Global SMART Programme enhances the capacity of Member States in priority regions to generate, manage, analyse, report and use synthetic drugs information to design effective policy and programme interventions.