According to the United Nations statistics in its 2017 report, around 5% of the world’s population were engaged in problematic use and suffered from drug use disorders. The issues of drugs and psychotropic substances have become more complex than ever due to a number of factors, mainly, the emergence of new synthetic drugs with around 739 new substances has emerged in comparison to 2012, according to UN report. Other factors include the continued widespread availability of already banned substances, the drug abuse trends have become more diverse than ever, the age of abuse has rapidly declined to a younger age group, the dramatic rise of the effect of such drugs and substance where the impact of some new substances has doubled and even tripled over the years, and finally, the increase in the number of drug addicts and psychotropic substances comparing to previous years.
All the above-mentioned matters make the issue of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances a central problem in our daily lives. There is no doubt that national governments and international institutions offer a lot of programs and projects to encounter this phenomenon along with the security, educational and research institutions, who are doing their best to fulfill their duties and responsibilities to help in eradicating this increasing danger with the help and support of several scientific and intellectual fields like the security and criminal police sciences.
Therefore, and out of our keen to address the issue with all its details and problems, the 14th Hemaya Forum comes at the right time to tackle this issue from a different angle, in an attempt to study the dimensions and problems of the scientific curricula related to narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and their implications on countering and combating illicit drugs.
