New Psychoactive Substances - Designer Drugs

Abstract

In the few years, a rapid and continuous increase has been observed in the availability of new psychoactive substances, which in the last two years, is no longer exponential. In order to evade legal restrictions, they are commonly mislabelled as "not for human consumption" and easily obtained on the Internet or sold by street resellers and specialized stores (Univerzitetni kliniZni center Ljubljana, 2016). These new psychoactive substances are commonly referred to as new designer drugs. Such substances are mainly used by young people at private parties and clubs, but there are also cases of people over the age of fifty using them as well (Cadet-Tairou, 2016). These drugs can be chemically classified as synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones, ketamine, phenethylamines, piperazines, synthetic opioids, synthetic benzodiazepines, plant-based substances, and rarer aminoidanes, phencyclidine and tryptamines, to name but a few. Their consumption must be considered in cases of differential diagnosis of individuals for whom we suspect poisoning of this kind occurred, and these patients must be asked about the possible consumption of designer drugs.