New psychoactive substances in Europe: legislation and prosecution — current challenges and solutions

The European new psychoactive substances (NPS) market has increased at a speed that established drug control laws struggle to match. Various countries have therefore introduced new legal responses to this phenomenon, based either on existing laws that focused on consumer or health protection or medicinal products, or by developing innovative new legislation. In 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that substances are not medicinal products if they do not have beneficial effects on human health, thus restricting the use of such laws for NPS control. This joint report prepared with Eurojust combines the EMCDDA’s top level monitoring activities with Eurojust’s operational experience in transnational prosecutions. The first part of the report is aimed at policymakers, and lists the challenges in NPS control and the solutions adopted in selected Member States. The second part is for legal practitioners, and focuses on the judgment of the Court of Justice and its practical effects on the transnational prosecution of NPS cases, describing the responses of some of the Member States most affected by the ruling.