Online drug dealing, legal highs and hundreds of new dangerous substances have created a crisis for governments, a UN expert will warn on a visit to Scotland next month.
Justice Tettey, Chief of the Laboratory and Scientific Section at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), will argue the world is grappling with the most profound shift in the drugs trade for decades.
Mr Tettey will issue the warning when he delivers the 2019 Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science Annual Lecture at Dundee University on Tuesday June 18.
In his lecture, he will say that the UNODC is working to protect people around the world.
But he will add: “We have been in crisis mode since the phenomenon of legal highs took hold across the world.
“This posed unprecedented challenges for governments and health authorities everywhere because not only did these substances, which mimicked the action of well-established drugs, get round existing laws but we did not know what their effects on users were and how dangerous they were.
“At their peak, we were seeing several new drugs emerge on the global market each week.”
Mr Tettey will argue that the sort of approach being developed by the Leverhulme Research Centre is required to win the war against drugs.
The centre is investigating new ways for law enforcement and forensic scientists to detect illicit drugs faster, cheaper and more effectively.
Mr Tettey will argue that organisations must work in partnership and across borders to tackle the threat posed by online drug dealing.
