"Both clinical and public interest has been growing in the therapeutic use of some novel substances, particularly psychedelic substances, but also dissociative drugs such as ketamine. A growing number of clinical studies are exploring the potential of a range of psychedelic substances to treat different mental health conditions. Generalising in this area is difficult, and much of the research remains in its infancy, but some research in this area appears promising. These developments have also received considerable media attention.
"Non-controlled and new benzodiazepines also continued to be available in some European countries but, again, current monitoring approaches make it difficult to comment on the scale of their use, although signals exist that these substances may have important consequences for health, especially when consumed in combination with other drugs. They are often very cheap and may be used by young people in combination with alcohol, sometimes resulting in potentially serious health reactions or aberrant behaviour.
"In fully adjusted, prespecified models that accounted for effects of sampling, between-study variation, and potential confounding from former drinker bias and other study-level covariates, our meta-analysis of 107 studies found (1) no significant protective associations of occasional or low-volume drinking (moderate drinking) with all-cause mortality; and (2) an increased risk of all-cause mortality for drinkers who drank 25 g or more and a significantly increased risk when drinking 45 g or more per day.
"End users seem to be buying their drugs on the dark web to a lesser extent than in previous years.28 Qualitative information provided by people who use social media suggests that the use of such media for drug purchasing purposes has been increasing, especially at the retail level.29 This is occurring in a context in which the use of social media, typically accessed via the clear web (although not exclusively) is increasing more rapidly than the use of the Internet in general.
"An Internet survey conducted simultaneously in 10 European Union countries in the period 2017–2018 among some 20,000 Internet-using drug consumers,15 using various recruitment strategies,16 found that 8 per cent of survey respondents had bought drugs on the dark web.17 This was a far smaller proportion than those who had bought drugs from a drug dealer (59 per cent), but a significantly larger proportion than those who had bought drugs from an online shop (3 per cent) or a specialized NPS shop (1 per cent).18
"The increasing availability of potent substances such as opioids on the Dark Web indicates that the current drug policies are ineffective. Criminalizing drug use facilitates opportunities for illicit drug markets to operate both on the streets and online, including highly elusive spaces like the Dark Web. As found in this study, despite efforts to curb the availability of illicit substances on the Dark Web, cryptomarkets list these substances for sale in abundance.
"Highly anonymized, elusive, and unregulated, the Dark Web is an ideal landscape for vendors selling illicit substances. The substances, in addition to the markets themselves, that are available on the Dark Web at any given time are difficult to predict. To offer insight into and characterize Dark Web markets, we conducted a study of the substances available on the Dark Web, both historically—between 2012 and 2019—and at present, between 2022 and 2023.
"Descriptive analysis of the data collected through both the literature review and data scraping on the Dark Web indicated varying periods of volatility in the availability and distribution of psychoactive substances. Notably, no major changes were apparent in the distribution of substances, on average, between 2012 and 2019, as reported in the literature.
"The Dark Web is a subsection of the internet that has become a hub for illicit activities, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and weapons trading. The Dark Web offers extensive layers of anonymity, making it appealing for individuals to engage in criminal behavior (Gupta et al., 2019).
