Straits Times
SINGAPORE – New forms of drugs are being created in laboratories to circumvent traditional drug laws and detection methods.
To combat this, the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) has launched a new forensic lab that will help the authorities here better detect such substances.
The Forensic Innovation and Research for Strategic Transformation Lab, or First Lab, was launched on April 14.
Details of the lab, including its location, remain confidential owing to the sensitive nature of the site and its operations.
In a statement, HTX said the lab will play a pivotal role in Singapore’s fight against new psychoactive substances (NPS).
Such substances mimic the effects of controlled drugs such as cannabis, heroin and cocaine, but have a modified chemical structure.
In its recent annual statistics report, the Central Narcotics Bureau said there are now 566 types of NPS on the market, of which 44 are newly identified.
The agency warned that there has been an emergence of nitazenes – a group of synthetic opioids – in several high-income countries.
Some of these substances are very potent, leading to fatal outcomes and a surge in overdose deaths worldwide.
In Singapore, there have been at least four NPS-related deaths since 2016.
At the launch of the lab on April 14, Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam said it will help the authorities identify such problematic substances even before they are produced and abused.
The lab does this by first identifying the effects of different chemicals, before figuring out the different possible chemical combinations that can produce highs when consumed.
Mr Shanmugam said: “It’s a very important, strategic capability. HTX, as a whole, has added many dimensions to our work in the Ministry of Home Affairs – the science and technology front.”
He added that the scientists in the lab are synthesising drugs that can provide them with a better idea of the consequences of taking them.
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