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Background: Timely information about trends in psychoactive substance use could yield tailored interventions and reduce potential harms. However, conventional epidemiological tools might have limited capacity to detect trends emerging on a local level. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore best practice in the identification of new drug trends at the local level. Methods: A total of 33 key informants from seven European municipalities/regions were interviewed to describe trends in substance use in their locality and to provide expert insights on how these were identified. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed with open coding method. Results: Four case studies that described local trends and responses were compiled: onset of problematic GHB use in the Dutch municipality of Breda (1); emerging retail shops selling new psychoactive substances (NPS) across the regions of Czech Republic (2) and in the Portuguese Agueda and Coimbra (3); and use of drugs with unknown content in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna, and its city Bologna (4). "Early identifiers" in the four case studies were organizations that work directly with people who use drugs (PWUD), emergency departments, and local police. Efficient methods of horizontal and vertical information sharing, sometimes facilitated by communication platforms, were in place, such that included early warning systems on local, national, and supra-local level. Local-level identification systems appeared as best suited to provide locally relevant information. Conclusions: Best practice in identifying emerging trends should involve all relevant "early identifiers", should consist of supra-local exchange platforms, integrate the qualities of local-level identification, and be facilitated by local-level coordinators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The indicator of availability has been used in the risk assessment (RA) of new psychoactive substances (NPS). This paper aims to examine the pre- and post-control availability of 25I-NBOMe, AH-7921, MDPV and MXE, which were assessed by the EMCDDA.Methods: Data were collected by a semi-automated software tool (I-TREND SASF) on e-shops in national languages (Czech, French, Dutch, Polish and English) that offered shipping of these compounds into the respective countries; frequency analysis was used.Findings: The number of e-shops selling these substances decreased between III/2014 and XII/2015 (except for AH-7921). Both increases and decreases were found on the country-level for all the compounds (except for an overall decrease for MXE). In one instance an NPS disappeared from this market in 2015 (25I-NBOMe in NL); 25I-NBOMe and AH-7921 in France and AH-7921 in Poland appeared for the first time in 2015 after they were put under control. The e-shops listing AH-7921, 25I-NBOMe and MDPV in XII/2015 ranked higher in terms of “popularity” than in III/2014. The IP addresses were more likely to be outside the EU in 2015 than in 2014.Conclusions: We found no evidence that national-level compound bans contributed to the changes in online NPS markets. Indicators of the accessibility, availability, popularity, and IP origin should be considered in RA. Data triangulation with street markets and the darknet is needed as well as more research into the “displacement” and “replacement” effects of control laws. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aims: News media coverage of drugs represents an important source for public perceptions of illicit drugs, which shape national drug policies. The aim of this article is to acknowledge differences between media types and formats, which are often neglected in the literature, so that drug field professionals can target them efficiently in order to achieve balanced media coverage of drug issues. Methods: We coded a total of 8380 Czech news media articles from 2007 related to drugs and drug use and analysed them with respect to their characteristics and drug-related coverage. With the use of multinomial logit models, two hypotheses were tested: (1) media types and formats differ with respect to their drug-related contents, and (2) media sources differ across media types and formats. Findings: Significant differences in drug-related coverage between media types and formats were found, except for public and private TV and the partisan and serious press; the media sources differed significantly across all media types and formats, public and serious media allow a broader range of sources. An exploratory analysis showed that there was a greater likelihood of TV and radio broadcasting supply reduction news, while tabloid journals, the partisan press, and local newspapers featured crime-related drug coverage. Conclusion: Drug field professionals can shape their media outputs to the needs of differing media types and formats, such as local media, which allow for direct contact with individual reporters, or audio-visual media, which require competent direct speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]