Web-monitoring activities are essential for mapping the diffusion of NPS and the use of technological tools can be successfully incorporated in specific prevention programmes. Furthermore, the involvement of multi-disciplinary international partnerships was and continues to be fundamental for responding to such a prominent challenge.
On the basis of the material available both in the scientific literature and on the web, this paper aims to provide a pharmacological, chemical and behavioural overview of the novel compound methoxetamine. This is a dissociative drug related to ketamine, with a much longer duration of action and intensity of effects. A critical discussion of the availability of information on the web of methoxetamine as a new recreational trend is here provided. Those methodological limitations, which are intrinsically associated with the analysis of online, non-peer reviewed, material, are here discussed as well. It is concluded that the online availability of information on novel psychoactive drugs, such as methoxethanine, may constitute a pressing public health challenge. Better international collaboration levels and novel forms of intervention are necessary to tackle this fast-growing phenomenon.
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