Novel detection methods and data triangulation for novel psychoactive substances (NPS)

Monitoring tools for novel psychoactive substances (NPS) have become increasingly sophisticated to keep pace with a highly innovative and dynamic NPS market. The overall picture of drug use cannot be obtained from any one single detection method with each highlighting a partial aspect of drug use prevalence or availability. Analysis of seizure or amnesty bin drug samples and wastewater/pooled urine provides knowledge of the main classes of substances used but not data relating to prevalence, frequency of use or user demographic. This may instead be captured by general or target population surveys - but these lack information on patterns of acute toxicity and are limited by uncertainties of the substances actually being used and participant recall reliability. These may be overcome by the analysis of biological specimens used in conjunction with epidemiological studies, however, large scale testing in this way is neither feasible nor practical. Triangulating the outcomes of multiple approaches used in combination may therefore help to improve the detection of NPS and their patterns of use across different settings.