Correct identification of substances is essential to understand drug use and trafficking trends and guide measures for harm reduction and treatment. Two steps are needed to verify the nature of a substance properly: a presumptive test and a confirmatory test. There are presumptive tests which presents deficiencies, such as providing false-positive and false-negative results. Confirmatory tests are more reliable, but they are more expensive. With the appearance of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), identifying and characterizing illicit substances has become more challenging. This paper focuses on presenting information about NPS characteristics and analysis. For this purpose, we have reviewed the literature to address the main aspects of five groups of NPS: amphetamine-type stimulants, synthetic cannabinoids, N-methoxybenzyl-methoxyphenylethylamine (NBOMe), synthetic opioids, and benzodiazepines. We present the main characteristics of each group and certain aspects of presumptive and confirmatory tests regarding these groups. Our findings show obstacles in developing methodologies that can correctly identify these substances, and problems can increase as new structures appear. This information can be helpful to drive research into identifying NPS and inform law enforcement and law practitioners about the main characteristics of each group and the main questions involving their identification.

Analytical Challenges for Identification of New Psychoactive Substances: A Literature-Based Study for Seized Drugs

Photoreduction of Benzophenone in the Gas Phase

Synthetic cannabinoids (SC’s) began to gain popularity around the world in 2009. Since then, many of the compounds have been outlawed and methods developed to detect them and their metabolites using mass spectrometry. Our work investigated the possibility of developing a colorimetric presumptive test. The SC JWH-019 was synthesized and its ketone targeted as a possible reaction site. Many SC’s contain ketones and thus a reaction at this site would be applicable to many of the compounds. Since JWH-019 is costly and time consuming to synthesize, much of the experimental work was done using benzophenone (BP). BP contains a diaryl ketone making it comparable to JWH-019. Our initial work studied existing presumptive tests, one for SC’s and one for cannabis. Both gave negative results for JWH-019. From there, we looked at synthesizing imines that might be colored. We studied reactions using dinitrophenylhydrazone, hydrazine, aniline and neutral red. Through these reactions it became apparent that the ketones on BP and JWH-019 were reluctant to react. Finally, we studied forming imines of BP with either ethylenediamine (en) or semicarbazide. The resulting product was then used to produce a metal complex. A complex formed between the en-BP product and Cu 2+ provided a change in color, but the en-BP imine proved difficult to obtain and the results were not consistent.

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Carrie Snyder

Papers

Developing a Presumptive Test for Select Synthetic Cannabinoids