St George’s Medical School (University of London) and the SSA produced a user-friendly set of factsheets to help integrate knowledge of substance use into the undergraduate medical curriculum. This factsheet examines novel psychoactive substances. After reading the factsheet, medical students will gain an understanding of:
- the rapidly changing nature of recreational drugs, trends in substance use, current usage patterns, and the ease with which new psychoactive substances can be obtained
- the need to ask patients about the use of ‘legal highs’ and the potential effects of such substances, as well as the need to treat the presenting symptoms without access to confirmatory laboratory analysis or other information
