Prevalence of new psychoactive substances: A retrospective study in hair

Abstract

New psychoactive substances are conquering the drug scene. Police seize different colourful packages with exceptional names. They are declared as 'bath salts', 'plant food', or 'research chemical powders'. Little is known about the actual prevalence of these drugs. Reanalysis of hair samples from routine cases concerning the presence of new psychoactive substances or 'smart drugs' should provide insight into changing patterns of designer drugs. All hair samples from 2009 and 2010 that originally tested positive for amphetamines or MDMA (N = 325) were reanalyzed for new or smart drugs such as 4-fluoroamphetamine, piperazines (BZP, mCPP and TFMPP), cathinones (4-MMC (mephedrone), methylone, butylone, ethylone, MDPV, methcathinone and cathinone), methylphenidate and ketamine. Hair snippets were extracted using a two-step extraction procedure. The analytes were analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) (electrospray ionization; multiple-reaction-monitoring mode - information dependent acquisition - enhanced product ion scan). New psychoactive substances were found in 120 cases (37%). Concerning the piperazine drugs, mCPP was positive in 34 (10.5%) cases and TFMPP in one case. Five mCPP cases were also positive for trazodone, an antidepressant which is metabolized to mCPP. In 11 (3%) cases, 4-MMC was detected. Concerning the smart drugs, methylphenidate was found in 16 (5%). Ketamine was found in 45 (14%) cases. 4-Fluoroamphetamine was identified in 12 (4%) cases and methylone in one case.In conclusion, there is a high prevalence of these drugs. Consequently, at least the most common ones (e.g. mCPP, KET, 4-MMC and 4-FA) should be included in screening procedures in clinical and forensic toxicology.

Increases in use of novel synthetic stimulant are not directly linked to decreased use of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA)

“…However, mephedrone was often the sole product component. This finding together with others reports [31,32] that suggested higher prevalence of mephedrone over the other synthetic stimulants indicated that mephedrone might be produced and distributed in a different way from the other synthetic stimulants. This hypothesis is supported by our data, which showed that the increase in mephedrone use occurred in the year before the increase in use of methylone, MDPV, BZP and TFMPP.…”

Monoamine transporter and receptor interaction profiles of novel psychoactive substances: Para-halogenated amphetamines and pyrovalerone cathinones

“…Para-(4)-phenyl-substituted amphetamines, which have emerged in recent years, with novel psychoactive substances and forensic cases (Helander et al, 2014;Johansen and Hansen, 2012;Rohrich et al, 2012;Rust et al, 2012). Users report that the subjective effects of 4-methlylmethcathinone (Carhart-Harris et al, 2011) and 4-fluoroamphetamine (Erowid, 2014) are comparable to those of MDMA.…”

Screening for new psychoactive substances in hair by ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

“…Thus, whereas the determination of synthetic cannabinoids in urine and blood will therefore be faced with the issue of identifying several metabolites often not well known, hair analysis can be focussed directly on the parent drug. Nevertheless, to date, only few studies deal with the determination of NPS in hair [19][20][21][22][23][24]. Two studies reported in the recent literature for the determination of synthetic cannabinoids used extraction methods based on incubation in concentrated sodium hydroxide solutions, providing the dissolution of the keratin matrix [19,20].…”