The Drugs Wheel is a non-commercial project, run on a voluntary basis, co-designed with UK Drugwatch, an informal association of charities, organisations and individuals who share an interest in establishing a robust early warning system in the UK for all types of drugs. There have been ongoing contributions from people using drugs, and professionals working with them. The project is led by Mark Adley, alongside Guy Jones (technical lead at Reagent Tests UK, and senior chemist at The Loop) and Michael Linnell, who provide up-to-date knowledge of emerging drugs and UK drug laws.
The Drugs Wheel emerged in 2012 as a response to the increasing number of new psychoactive substances on the market that didn't fit within existing methods of drug classification. A more complete model was needed to adjust to this changing landscape, and the addition of three new categories of cannabinoids, empathogens and dissociatives meant that all drugs could now be placed neatly within one model. Classifying drugs in this way allows for advice and harm reduction information to be given by category.
The Drugs Wheel can be used as a training tool and as a game for use in training or 1:1 sessions. There are free versions to download on this site, as well as other resources. When using the Drugs Wheel, please consider:
The Drugs Wheel is a model and doesn't aim to list every drug on the market or describe every drug's effect. Its goal is to simplify the drugs landscape.
The inner and outer rings of the Wheel can be adapted for use in your own country or organisation, for example they could refer to prescribed or non-prescribed drugs, or levels of risk. The issue of prescription drugs is also a topic for discussion: how these drugs can have recreational uses and how their legal status changes depending on whether they have been prescribed for the person taking them.
Drugs affect different people in different ways, and some drugs fit into a number of categories. Synthetic cathinones for example can be both stimulant and empathogenic. The main area of overlap in the Drugs Wheel is that of stimulants and empathogens, however the empathogen category was included because there are drugs available (such as MDAI) that impact on serotonin levels without any noticeable stimulant effects in humans.
Thank you to Michael Linnell for donating the majority of the images for the Drugs Wheel game, the excellent tripsit.me and NEPTUNE resources, Creative Commons for enabling projects such as these to stay non-commercial, and users of Drugs Forum and Bluelight, and the dark web from around the world for sharing their experiences.
In 2019 the Drugs Wheel was taken to new digital heights by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. In 2025, Novadic Kentron integrated a Polydrugs version into their website and training materials. The Wheel is now referenced in academic literature, textbooks, and training materials around the world.