On May 1, the Central Narcotics Bureau listed New Psychoactive Substances as Class A controlled drugs, and the next night, two male Singaporeans, aged 22 and 23 years, were arrested for allegedly possessing synthetic cannabis, which falls under the new classification.
What exactly are synthetic drugs? How different are they from "natural" drugs? Which is more harmful? Here's the lowdown on synthetic drugs:
Synthetic drugs are...
...drugs with properties and effects similar to a known hallucinogen or narcotic. Simply put, synthetic drugs are "those substances that are produced entirely from chemical reactions in a laboratory", according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and they mimic illegal substances.
...drugs with properties and effects similar to a known hallucinogen or narcotic. Simply put, synthetic drugs are "those substances that are produced entirely from chemical reactions in a laboratory", according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and they mimic illegal substances.
What's frightening about synthetic drugs is that no one really knows what goes into them. It is all in a day's work for manufacturers to constantly change the chemical compounds of the drugs just to dodge existing laws. What's more, they are highly addictive.
The problem of synthetic drugs, which are also known as legal highs and designer drugs, has become so huge all over the world that the "bad guys" - meth, cocaine and heroin - now trail after them.
Most of the chemicals that are used to make these synthetic drugs are coming directly from China, according to US Drug Enforcement Administration official John Scherbenske in a CNN interview.
Time magazine reported in September 2013 that "suburban laboratories around Chinese port cities are the principal source, from where they can be easily shipped to Europe or North America using regular international courier services".
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