Q&A :: High-risk highs

The illegal drug substitutes are the fourth most common stimulant among teenagers and twentysomethings in the country, a study run by the Warsaw University of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The probe, which was run as part of I-TREND, Internet Tools for Research in Europe on New Drugs, divides the users into five key groups: partygoers, supermen, experts, experimenters and … kamikaze.

The final group “are users who use psychoactive substances in a very harmful way,” says a member of the research team, psychologist Dorota Wiszejko-Wierzbicka. “Their motivation is getting to know their own limits. They are seeking for stimulation,” she told Q&A host Alicja Baczyńska.

While the kamikaze are the most reckless group of users, all designer drug buffs subject themselves to a risk of consuming unidentified substances marketed as bath salts, incense or moisture absorbers labeled as unfit for consumption.

However, as long as they remain legal and manufacturers continue to concoct replacements for compounds successively banned by the authorities, they will only continue to gain in popularity, experts point out.