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Identification of six tryptamine derivatives as designer drugs in illegal products

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Abstract

Purpose

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.

Methods

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.

Results

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.

Conclusions

The continuous provisional monitoring of newly detected compounds in illicit products will largely prevent the distribution of these products.

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Acknowledgements

A portion of this work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Labor of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pharmacognosy, Phytochemistry and Narcotics, National Institute of Health Sciences, 3-25-26, Tonomachi, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 210-9501, Japan

    Rie Tanaka, Maiko Kawamura, Takashi Hakamatsuka & Ruri Kikura-Hanajiri

Authors
  1. Rie Tanaka
  2. Maiko Kawamura
  3. Takashi Hakamatsuka
  4. Ruri Kikura-Hanajiri

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rie Tanaka.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Tanaka, R., Kawamura, M., Hakamatsuka, T. et al. Identification of six tryptamine derivatives as designer drugs in illegal products. Forensic Toxicol 39, 248–258 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11419-020-00556-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11419-020-00556-5

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