Quick Guide to Designer Drugs

Illicit drug chemists have been modifying structures of abused drugs to circumvent legal restrictions and evade detection. The novel compounds they create have been given the moniker 'designer drugs.'

The Quick Guide to Designer Drugs reviews the major classes of abused drugs where this phenomenon has been occurring. Included are discussions of designer cathinones (bath salts), synthetic cannabinoids (spice, K2), and designer phenethylamines and tryptamines, as well as analogs of benzodiazepines, ketamine, opioids, and phencyclidine. Specific sections are devoted to the designer cathinones and synthetic cannabinoids because of their popularity for use and abuse. Data from postmortem cases and drugged driving cases are summarized, as are results from in vivo and in vitro metabolism studies in the scientific literature. The extraction procedures of designer drugs from biologic matrices as well as analytical methods, including immunoassay, gas chromatography mass spectrometry, and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, to more esoteric methods are discussed in detail. This Guide is intended to benefit toxicologists and clinical chemists.