Identification of six tryptamine derivatives as designer drugs in illegal products

Abstract

To prevent the abuse of new designer drugs, Japan has declared 2385 substances and two plants as “Designated Substances” as of March 2020. Although the distribution of these substances has decreased over the past 5 years, newly detected designer drugs are still being found. We have detected six designer drugs in six powdery products between February of 2017 and April of 2019. The structures of the compounds were determined by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC–MS), liquid chromatography with hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-Q-TOF–MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Six tryptamine derivatives (4-acetoxy-N,N-dipropyltryptamine, 4-hydroxy-N,N-dipropyltryptamine, 4-hydroxy-N-methyl-N-propyltryptamine, N-ethyl-N-propyltryptamine, 4-hydroxy-N-ethyl-N-propyltryptamine (4OH-EPT), and 4-hydroxy-N-methyl-N-cyclopropyltryptamine (4OH-McPT) were identified. Among these, 4OH-EPT and 4OH-McPT were identified as newly distributed designer drugs. The continuous provisional monitoring of newly detected compounds in illicit products will largely prevent the distribution of these products.