A new psychoactive substance appears on Europe's drug market about once a week. EU officials say synthetic opioids pose a risk so acute that a single gram can contain several thousand lethal doses.
The warning comes from the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), which published its 2026 European Drug Report on 9 June. The report found 50 new drugs detected for the first time across Europe in 2025 alone, many synthetic opioids and cathinones.