新冠疫情下新興精神影響物質在台灣的流行趨勢變化之研究

大約15年前，以『合成大麻類』與『合成卡西酮類』化合物為主的新影響精神物質（New Psychoactive Substances，以下稱 NPS）在歐美國家逐漸興起，也於2014年開始盛行於台灣。而從2020年開始COVID-19襲擊全球，造成人們生活模式大變，2021年5月臺灣更因防疫漏洞，猛爆式疫情使得台灣進入三級警戒，8大場所的封閉，生活型態的再驟變，也使得毒品的販賣與使用產生更多差異。 本研究透過統計學角度來探究：在新冠疫情下，台灣NPS毒品流行趨勢變化。研究收集4年來衛生福利部公布之『藥物濫用案件暨檢驗統計資料』，並從每月公布之『我國檢出NPS統計表』獲得查獲數。以2018-2019年為疫情前，而2020-2021年為疫情中，並從中挑選具代表性之18種合成卡西酮類毒品，5種愷他命類毒品，6種類大麻毒品，以『Wilcoxon符號等級檢定』進行流行趨勢分析。研究結果顯示：Mephedrone和4MDMC查獲數大幅增加，占疫情中之NPS毒品通報總數的85.71 %。在查獲量與查獲率上，合成卡西酮類成長超過一倍，愷他命類和類大麻毒品則是有減少之趨勢。其中Mephedrone、4MDMC、Eutylone，MEC和MPHP、FDCK和JWH-203等7個毒品有統計上顯著成長。

New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), mainly based on "synthetic cannabinoids" and "synthetic cathinones" compounds, gradually emerged in Europe and the United States since 15 years ago, and began to prevail in Taiwan in 2014.COVID-19 has hit the world since 2020, causing great changes in people's living patterns. Due to loopholes in pandemic prevention and a severe explosive pandemic, Taiwan began to enter the three-level alert, the closure of 8 major venues, and the dramatic changes in people's lifestyles, which also caused differences in drug trafficking and use in May 2021.In this study, 18 representative synthetic cathinones were selected based on the monthly statistics of NPS detected in Taiwan published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare from 2018 to 2021, and the monthly statistics on NPS drug abuse cases and inspections. Types of ketamines and 6 types of synthetic cannabinoids were used to analyze the trend of NPS during COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. The results showed that the seizures of Mephedrone and 4MDMC increased significantly, accounting for 85.71% of the total number of NPS drug notifications during pandemic (2020-2021). In terms of seizure volume and seizure rate, synthetic cathinones have increased by twice, while ketamines and synthetic cannabinoids have a tendency to decrease. Seven of them, Mephedrone, 4MDMC, Eutylone, MEC and MPHP, FDCK and JWH-203, had statistically significant increases.