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Sharing, Group-Buying, Social Supply, Offline and Online Dealers: how Users in a Sample from Six European Countries Procure New Psychoactive Substances (NPS)

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction volume 17, pages 1237–1251 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Given the multiple ways of regulations and market situations for new psychoactive substances (NPS), it is of interest how NPS users procure their drugs in different countries as well as in different user groups. Data comes from a face-to-face and online survey conducted in six EU countries, covering three groups of current (12-month) adult NPS users: (1) socially marginalized, (2) users in night life, and (3) users in online communities. While the supply situation differed considerably between countries, friends were the most prevalent source for buying, followed by online shops and private dealers. Marginalized users were more likely to buy from dealers, while online respondents showed the highest rates for buying online. While buying NPS from online or offline shops was relatively prevalent, we also found high rates for social supply and buying from dealers. A considerable part of this market may be classified as “social online supply,” with private suppliers procuring their drugs online. The market features among marginalized users resemble more those of illicit drug markets than those for other NPS users.

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Notes

  1. Respondents could choose more than one answer.

  2. Respondents could choose more than one answer.

  3. While “smart shop“—a term that at the time of the survey was almost exclusive to the Netherlands among all participating countries—usually refers to shops that focus on legal psychoactive substances, “head shops” are focused on drug paraphernalia.

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Funding

The NPS Transnational project received funding from the European Commission under NPS-HOME/2014/JDRU/AG/DRUG/7077. The project was co-financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland from financial resources for science in 2016–2017 granted for the implementation of an international co-financed project. The German partners received co-financing from the German Ministry of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Drug Research, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Germany

    Bernd Werse & Gerrit Kamphausen

  2. Bonger Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Annemieke Benschop & Dirk Korf

  3. Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

    Marie-Claire van Hout

  4. Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Susana Henriques & Joana Paula Silva

  5. Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, Poland

    Katarzyna Dąbrowska, Łukasz Wieczorek & Michał Bujalski

  6. Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Katalin Felvinczi

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  1. Bernd Werse
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  2. Annemieke Benschop
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  4. Marie-Claire van Hout
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Correspondence to Bernd Werse.

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Werse, B., Benschop, A., Kamphausen, G. et al. Sharing, Group-Buying, Social Supply, Offline and Online Dealers: how Users in a Sample from Six European Countries Procure New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). Int J Ment Health Addiction 17, 1237–1251 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-0043-1

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