Synthetic Drug Trends in 2021
In 2021, we know of at least 27 new synthetic drugs that came to the market. That's one new synthetic drug introduced every other week. We have been saying for over 10 years that synthetic drugs were going to conquer the market and that has happened. Often called NPS drugs (for Novel Psychoactive Substances), this class of drugs has been sweeping the illicit drug market.
Cannabinoids are the Most prevalent in 2021
In 2021, Synthetic Cannabinoids were the most popular drugs to come to the market. This was predicted, however. Most of these drugs come from chemical manufacturers in China. Recently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) outlawed certain synthetic cannabinoids. In order to skirt this law, Chinese chemists went to work and developed new synthetic cannabinoids by changing a molecule here and there to create new drugs that skirted the CCP's new law. To make matters worse, the CCP is giving tax incentives to chemical manufacturers that make certain variations of these drugs.
Opioids came in 2nd, but they missed being on top by only 1. Many of these opioids are offshoots of fentanyl with some being more potent than fentanyl. Still, other opioids are not as powerful and have no association with fentanyl. The drug category to watch out for, though, would be hallucinogens. There appears to be a growing market online for synthetic hallucinogenic drugs.
New Opioids in 2021
New opioids introduced last year include Butonitzene and Etodesnitzene which we wrote about here. These two drugs will be drugs that you will see more of in the very near future. Their popularity is growing every day. Other opioids discovered include Flunitzene, protonitzene and metodesnitazene. Some of these drugs are much more potent than fentanyl, with some suggesting they can be up to 2-6 times more potent than fentanyl.