Diffusion, diversion, displacement – but not disruption - The challenge of responding to synthetic drug

In Togo, interviews were carried out in the nation’s capital, Lomé, and Cinkassé, a town on the border with Ghana and Burkina Faso and a main transit point for a range of illicit products entering and leaving Togo.12 In Niger, interviews took place in the capital, Niamey, and the city of Agadez, a transit point for many illicit economies and an increasingly important drug consumption hub.13 In add. [...] These include studies of the economic behaviour of synthetic drug markets and the ways that drug markets have reacted to shocks across 4 The challenge of responding to synthetic drug markets, through the lens of tramadol in West Africa time and place. [...] These three organisations contributed to the design of the research and led the in-country data collection with the support of GI-TOC staff, both in the field and in programme design and data analysis. [...] Niger listed tramadol in 2013.43 An increase in police raids and operations in the cities of Niamey, Agadez and Maradi reportedly led to the dismantling of tramadol trafficking operations, as well as the closure of many shops on the outskirts of the various towns.44 Togo enacted its regulatory reform in 2015, aiming to enhance the national response to the illicit market in pharmaceutical products. [...] Difficulties in acquiring the quantities of PE necessary for industrial production of the drug has seen a shift in recent years (with observers indicating the shift occurred somewhere between 2016 and 2018) from a PE model of synthesis to one grounded in the manufacture of BMK and the subsequent synthesis of meth.