About the SMART Update
Synthetic drugs constitute one of the most significant drug problems worldwide. After cannabis and opioids, amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the most widely used drugs across the globe, with use levelsoften exceeding those of heroin and/or cocaine. Along with ATS, the continued growth 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 drugs and traditional illicit drug markets is being observed, and trends on the synthetic drugs market evolve quickly each year.
The UNODC Global Synthetics Monitoring: Analyses, Reporting and Trends (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. Launched in September 2008, the Global SMART Programme provides capacity building to laboratory personnel, law enforcement and research officers in the Pacific, East and South-East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean; and regularly reviews the global ATS and NPS situation. Its main products include online drug data collection, situation assessment reports, regional assessments and the UNODC Early Warning Advisory (EWA) on NPS. The EWA is a web portal that provides access to information on NPS in the range of subject area including global monitoring, risk communication, chemical analysis, toxicology, pharmacology, emergence and legislative response. (available at: www.unodc.org/nps and www.unodc.org/tox).
The Global SMART Update (GSU) series is published twice a year in English, Spanish and Russian. It provides information on emerging patterns and trends
of the global synthetic drugs market in a concise format*. Past issues have covered topics such as the ATS market – 10 years after the 2009 Plan of Action, understanding the global opioid crisis, the dominance
of methamphetamine in the synthetic drugs market, the role of NPS in the synthetic drugs market and nonmedical use of benzodiazepines. Electronic copies of the Global SMART Updates and other publications are available at: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/scientists/publicationssmart.html.
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