The regulation and control of psychoactive substances and their precursors is constantly counteracted by the imagination, inventiveness, experimentation and targeted research that consumers/manufacturers use in order to elude the laws, which during the last few years has led to a surge in the marketing and use of these products in the context of a missing or unclear legal framework. We are witnessing an explosion in the use of some products and substances which are either new intoxicants, or have been considered benign until recently (such is the case with numerous species of plants). The legal and medical systems are currently facing conceptual problems: how to define or characterise the product of interest (considering its ubiquitous availability and marketing forms), which of its active principles should be controlled (including by-products created by spicing the basic product), which are the applicable criminal, civil or commercial laws, how to control the "rerouting" of pharmaceutical/parapharmaceutical remedies, common drugs, nutritional supplements, exotic aromas, fertilizers or spices-the so-called unconventional intoxicants. The limitations of scientific knowledge, the novelty of various psychoactive blends, the appearance of new classes of substances, the mix with different plants etc. are major impediments for the increase in the reaction time and consequently for an efficient control by the authorities. In order to provide evidence for intoxication, a certain flexibility is needed for the on-site forensic investigation, analysis of the corpus delicti (toxicology and botanics), and the clinical examination, while toxicological detection may be of support in the context of technical-scientific difficulties. Driving under influence thus becomes a challenge for the traffic safety and for the authorities or persons authorised to conduct the inquiry and limit the phenomenon. The present article aims to provide a synthesis of the current scientific knowledge on legal highs and an overview of the limitative, but also promising toxicological issues which are needed for the description of the phenomenon.

In the modern history of our country, the subject of psychoactive substances was banned as being against the socialist-communist political ideology, and consequently the research and knowledge on the historical evolution of the use of plants and substances for medical, hedonistic and/or ritual purposes in our country was not given any encouragement. In this context of a diluted and outdated knowledge on the psychoactive substances which had been maintained for decades, the explosion of the drug addiction phenomenon encountered an idealistic perception ("it is a problem of the Western world", "we are just a transit country", etc.), which lead to a fast increase in the number of young people who tried to consume illegal drugs. The political/administrative organisations, the civil society, the NGOs and particularly the scientific experts in Romania had all a very slow and laggard response, which has lead to the current situation when drug addiction is finally recognized as a very serious issue. Particular features of the Romanian phenomenon-surprisingly not due to the local tradition or spontaneous flora (as long as currently marketed products are imported)-are presented in this publication, giving examples from the criminal investigation experience. An alarming issue which has been highlighted by our research points to the fact that "classical drugs", such as opioids, methadone, ketamine, MDMA, are likely to be used in Romania for "spicing up" the so-called "legal" marketed products. In the following, we shall trace the historical evolution of the use of plants and substances for medical, hedonistic and/or ritual purposes in our country. We shall also reflect on the related legislative and medical issues, and the suggested measures.

Biochip Array Technology (BAT) is a new technique used for screening purposes in clinical and forensic toxicology. The purpose of this article is to compare it with the standard ELISA with spectrophotometric detection (SD) in regard of its sensibility and specificity. Material and methods. Fifty five samples were analyzed on both BAT and ELISA SD; the results were confirmed using either GC-MS (for opiates, benzoilecgonine and cannabinoids) or HPLC (for barbiturates and benzodiazepines). Results. For opiates BAT technique had a sensibility of 100% and a specificity of 97.72%. Sensibility for ELISA SD technique was 92.3% and specificity 97.72%. For benzoilecgonine the sensibility and specificity for BAT was 100% whilst for ELISA SD the sensibility was 100% and specificity was 93.10%. For cannabinoids the sensibility for BAT was 90%, and specificity was 97.7% whilst for the ELISA SD technique the sensibility was 100% and the specificity was 91.11%. For barbiturates the sensibility and specificity was 100% for both methods. For benzodiazepines the sensibility for BAT was 100% and the specificity was 95.65% whilst for ELISA SD the sensibility was 100% and the specificity was 93.47%. Conclusions. The results obtained on BAT are comparable with those from ELISA-SD and have a high sensitivity and specificity compared to the used confirmatory methods. The results do not have however an increased statistical significance due to a very small number of positive results, caused by an abruptly decreasing number of positive cases in the last year, mainly due to increased used of "legal highs".

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In the last few years in Romania a modern system of drug detection has been developed in the legal medicine system, increasing the detection rate and the sensitivity of DRD detection. In this short report we will present a general profile of drug abuse in Bucharest in 2010. The study was conducted in 2010 when a total number of 208 toxicology tests were conducted in the National Institute of Legal Medicine, 105 on cadavers and 103 on living persons. As main results, in living the most frequently identified drugs of abuse were THC and opiates whilst in cadavers opiates were the most frequent, followed by benzodiazepines. Conclusions. Opiate consumption has a tendency to decrease compared with 2009. Legal highs seems to shift the pattern of drug consumption in Bucharest and surrounding areas, but a definite results can only be obtained using test results from 2011.