Designer Drugs / Research Chemicals / Legal Highs - A survey of recent seizures and an attempt to a more effective handling from a Swiss perspective

Since the first seizure of synthetic cannabinoids (“Spice” in 2007) on the illegal drug market in Switzerland, there has been an enormous increase of substances of different chemical classes. The diversity of different cannabinoids (JWH-, WIN-, CP- and HU-substances) increased greatly and different amphetamines (e.g. 4-fluoroamphetamine), cathinone derivatives (e.g. mephedrone, methylon, fluoromethcathinone) piperazines (e.g. m-CPP, oCPP) tryptamines and more recently alkyl amines (e.g. geranamine), benzofuranes (e.g. 5APB) and indanes (e.g. 5-IAI) appeared both on the market and as seizures. Little is known about the toxicological and pharmacological effects of those single substances let alone of interactions in mixtures of such substances. Frequently seized products consist of mixtures e.g. stimulants combined with local anaesthetics and hypnotics. Many products with very professional appearance (fancy wrappings with faked ingredient lists and even holographic quality labels) mislead consumers and pretend quality controlled production. In Switzerland the legal status of such substances or products is poorly defined as according to the narcotics act each single substance has to be listed individually and the process of listing new substances is very slow. Substances, even though they are pharmacologically active are not considered medicals unless they were used therapeutically at any time or place. As the import and possession of a 30 day supply even of unapproved medicals is legal, there is virtually practically no regulation at all. As an attempt to overcome these problems the implementation of a new “provisional register” into the narcotics regulation with the aim to be able to quickly react onto new drug trends is planned and is presented. In analogy to several European and Non-European countries the