A three-day Workshop on New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) was held from 19th to 21st September in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The workshop was conducted by a team of three experts (one prosecutor and two law enforcement background experts) contracted as short-term experts.
NPS phenomenon is causing serious concern not only among health services, but also among law enforcement agencies, which are first responders in case of illegal trafficking and trading with these substances. From customs officers, police patrols, drug investigators, prisons officers, prosecutors and criminalistics laboratories analysing drug samples, all of them have an essential role in preventing that new psychotropic substances are abused of by potential consumers.
EU-ACT Project is determined to support, firstly its five priority countries, combatting NPS abuse, and based on the requests made by them, plans to organize awareness-raising workshops for a broad spectrum of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs).
To raise awareness of the NPS phenomenon, to support the identification of these substances and associated legal issues, to provide patterns of behaviour and procedures by law enforcement agencies in front of NPS substances, and LEA´s first response before NPS overdoses.
The Awareness-raising workshop on New Psychoactive Substances for Law Enforcement Agencies started in Bishkek on September 19th.