Abstract
The black market for new psychoactive substances has been constantly evolving and the substances that appear on this market cause a considerable number of issues, in extreme cases leading to human deaths. While monitoring the drug black market, we detected a sample of a dissociative anesthetic methoxphenidine, the salt of which contained an unusual anion in the form of bromo- and chloro-zincate complex. Concerning the unknown and potentially hazardous properties of this sample, we performed an in vitro cytotoxicity screening in cell lines of various origins (e.g., kidney, liver, bladder) which was compared with the toxicity results of the methoxphenidine standard prepared for this purpose. The street methoxphenidine sample exhibited markedly higher toxicity than the standard, which was probably caused by the anion impurity. Since it is not usual to analyze anions in salts of novel psychoactive substances, but such samples may be commonly available at the drug black market, we have developed a method for their identification with X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), which also enabled us to distinguish between different polymorphs/solvates of methoxphenidine that were crystallized in the laboratory. XRPD offers additional data about samples, which may not be discovered by routine techniques, and in some cases, they may help to find out essential information.
Highlights
Chemical modifications of illicit drugs result in novel compounds commonly known as new psychoactive substances (NPSs) or designer drugs that circumvent legislation.When the pharmacophore of a -modified compound is preserved, it usually mimics the biological effects of the parental drug, but with unexplored pharmacological effects and toxicity
The structure of the product was confirmed by 1 H and 13 C-NMR spectroscopy (400-MR DDR2 spectrometer, Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, USA), deuterated methanol was used as a solvent and the residual signals of the solvent served as an internal standard
Since we found the impurity in both samples from the black market, we tried to discover in anecdotal reports and forums whether users did not complain about the rather low purity of this NPS
Summary
Chemical modifications of illicit drugs result in novel compounds commonly known as new psychoactive substances (NPSs) or designer drugs that circumvent legislation.When the pharmacophore of a -modified compound is preserved, it usually mimics the biological effects of the parental drug, but with unexplored pharmacological effects and toxicity. The ever-increasing number of NPSs on the black market makes it clear that we are only at the very tip of a substance-abuse iceberg. EMCDDA divides NPSs into several groups, one of which includes dissociative anesthetics. Dissociative anesthetics represent a relatively small group of NPSs, they are often abused for their wide range of mind-altering effects. In Reports of MXP being sold on the black market emerged from the United Kingdom in 2013 and were quickly followed by news of its seizure in several countries of the European Union (EU) [15,16]. It is worth noting that MXP doses very often exceed 100 mg [21] These users describe the effects of MXP as the clear-headed state in which they have difficulty some instances, such abuse has resulted in human deaths [2].
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