NCSA raises alarm over ‘emerging drugs’

Ecstasy and methamphetamine are among drugs to have emerged here, the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) said on Thursday.

While the NCSA does not yet have figures, medical and police reports are raising concerns of a growing problem, said Research and Information Officer Laura Foster at a workshop for members of the Barbados Union of Teachers on the Signs and Symptoms of Drug Use at Erdiston Teachers’ Training College.

Foster said: “Persons are going into treatment for what we call non-traditional substances…for ecstasy, we’ve had cases of persons seeking treatment for lean, for ketamine, as well as things like methamphetamine, so like crystal meth, as well as some prescription medications, so benzodiazepines and those types of things.

“The fact that they’re turning up in treatment statistics and we’re also seeing police seizures of things like ecstasy and methamphetamine lets us know that they are present in Barbados.”

Foster explained that while alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and inhalants remain the most commonly used substances, emerging drugs are becoming more visible.

The NCSA research officer pointed to a significant increase in ecstasy seizures over the past decade.

“What we’re seeing is that ecstasy is coming out as the frontrunner amongst those newer substances, and that is supported with the police seizure data. I think it was like 3,342 tablets in 2023, and then we saw that growth again to over 7000 in 2024,” she said.

Foster also explained that some of the substances appearing in treatment cases include drugs commonly used by young people, such as benzodiazepines and lean.

She added: “Xanax, that’s what benzodiazepines are, and then in terms of the lean, that is a combination of things. So that includes codeine cough syrup along with a soft drink, so quite often it is like lemon flavored soft drink along with a hard candy, and they use the hard candy to give additional flavouring to the mixture, but the active ingredient in that combination is really going to be the codeine cough syrup.”

Although previous reports indicated the possibility of fentanyl in Barbados, Foster said the NCSA currently has no confirmed data on the presence of the drug locally.

But she noted that the early warning system established by the NCSA in 2019 is designed to detect emerging drug threats quickly and allow authorities to respond faster.

“We have various stakeholders as part of our early warning system, people who are more likely to encounter drugs or changes with regards to drugs in their line of work,” Foster said.

“And if they notice something, they’re able to raise a red flag and bring it to the attention of the rest of the system so that we can discuss it and that’s how we’ve been able to, for example, issue alerts with regards to methamphetamine. We issued an alert with regards to synthetic cannabinoids because once we are able to have a substance tested and the Forensic Sciences Centre can confirm what is in it, then we can work to educate the public and raise the issue.”

She added that the system allows the NCSA to act quickly when new substances emerge.

“One of the biggest things that we have is our early warning system because that will give us the opportunity to intercept or basically act as quickly as we can. Whereas our traditional statistics may take a bit longer because it takes a while to conduct a survey, analyse the data, and write a report. When persons notice what has happened, they can bring it up right away and we can act as soon as possible,” she noted.

Foster said this approach also allows the NCSA to incorporate emerging substances into its drug prevention and education programmes.