British journal of hospital medicine (London, England : 2005)
May 18, 2026
Karen L Erskine, Paul I Dargan, David M Wood
Ketamine, initially developed as a dissociative anaesthetic, has seen expanding therapeutic applications, in managing treatment-resistant depression and chronic pain. However, its psychoactive properties have also been associated with a significant rise in recreational use globally. Chronic, high-dose recreational ketamine use is associated with dependence potential and a spectrum of long-term...
Clinical Toxicology
March 1, 2025
Joep J. J. Ouwerkerk, David M Wood, Alison M. Dines et al.
1 citation
This study hypothesized that 3,4-methylenedioxymetamfetamine intoxication presents with distinct clinical features and outcomes when combined with other substances of misuse, compared to mono-3,4-methylenedioxymetamfetamine intoxication. This study investigated the clinical presentation of acute mono-3,4-methylenedioxymetamfetamine intoxication, 3,4-methylenedioxymetamfetamine intoxication with...
Journal of Medical Toxicology
2025
Caitlin E Wolfe, Lachlan J Sund, John Rh Archer et al.
5 citations
Novel Psychoactive Substance (NPS) use is increasingly prevalent and is often associated with severe acute recreational drug toxicity (ARDT). 258 UK deaths were attributed to NPS use in 2021. Confirmatory testing which identifies NPS is limited by expense and timeliness. We aimed to identify NPS and other recreational drugs in a sample of 1000 ARDT presentations to a central London hospital in...
Archives of Toxicology
November 1, 2022
Liesl K Janssens, Simon Hudson, David M Wood et al.
Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) pose a danger to public health. This study focused on individuals experiencing recreational drug toxicity who had used 5F-MDMB-PICA.Patient records were evaluated regarding vital signs, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and clinical features. Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) confirmed and quantified the presence...
Clinical Toxicology
August 2022
Yasmin Schmid, Miguel Galicia, Severin B Vogt et al.
To investigate if clinical features associated with acute cannabis intoxication in patients presenting to Emergency Departments for medical assistance differ according to patient age and sex. We analysed presentations in the Euro-DEN Plus dataset from 2014 to 2019 in which cannabis was the only drug involved (except for alcohol), and age, sex and alcohol co-ingestion had been recorded. Age was...
Metabolites
July 27, 2020
Andrea E. Steuer, Daria Kaelin, Martina I. Boxler et al.
32 citations
Psychoactive stimulants are a popular drug class which are used recreationally. Over the last decade, large numbers of new psychoactive substances (NPS) have entered the drug market and these pose a worldwide problem to human health. Metabolomics approaches are useful tools for simultaneous detection of endogenous metabolites affected by drug use. They allow identification of pathways or...
Medicine
January 31, 2018
Evangelia Liakoni, Chris Yates, Alison M. Dines et al.
38 citations
The aim of the study was to compare self-reported and analytically confirmed substance use in cases of acute recreational drug toxicity.We performed a retrospective analysis of emergency department presentations of acute recreational drug toxicity over 2 years (October 2013 to September 2015) within the European Drug Emergencies Network Plus project.Among the 10,956 cases of acute recreational...
Substance Use & Misuse
January 28, 2017
Mark Haden, John R H Archer, Paul I Dargan et al.
MDMB-CHMICA (methyl 2-[[1-(cyclohexylmethyl)indole-3-carbonyl]amino]-3,3-dimethylbutanoate) is a synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist that has been detected in several recreational drug products in Europe since August 2014. This article aims to describe the prevalence of use, availability, and desired and adverse effects of MDMB-CHMICA. Data were collated from published scientific literature,...
BMC Psychiatry
August 18, 2016
Odd Martin Vallersnes, Alison M. Dines, David M Wood et al.
Psychosis can be associated with acute recreational drug and novel psychoactive substance (NPS) toxicity. However, there is limited data available on how common this is and which drugs are most frequently implicated. We describe a European case series of psychosis associated with acute recreational drug toxicity, and estimate the frequency of psychosis for different recreational drugs. The...
Clinical Toxicology
February 28, 2014
Paul I Dargan, H. Tang, W. Liang et al.
UNLABELLED: CONTEXT.: Methoxetamine is a ketamine analogue that has recently emerged as a novel psychoactive substance. Chronic ketamine use is associated with significant bladder and renal toxicity. Methoxetamine has been marketed as "bladder friendly", but there is no data to be able to substantiate this claim. OBJECTIVE: To characterise the patterns of bladder and renal toxicity associated...
Clinical Toxicology
May 11, 2012
Jennifer Shields, Paul I Dargan, David M Wood et al.
CONTEXT: There have been recent concerns about increasing use and accessibility of methoxetamine, a ketamine derivative. Few data are available to describe the clinical features associated with methoxetamine exposure. We report three cases that presented to hospital with acute neurological toxicity associated with analytically confirmed methoxetamine exposure. CASE DETAILS: A 19-year-old male...
European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
May 1, 2012
David M Wood, Susannah Davies, Malgorzata Puchnarewicz et al.
Long-term regular use of ketamine has been reported to be associated with severe symptomatic urinary tract problems. Methoxetamine, an arylcyclohexylamine derivative of ketamine, is marketed as a "bladder safe" derivative of ketamine, and no cases of acute toxicity following analytically confirmed methoxetamine use have been reported to date. We report here a case series of three individuals...
Emerging health threats journal
April 15, 2011
Sarbjeet S Kalsi, David M Wood, Paul I Dargan
Ketamine was originally synthesised for use as a dissociative anaesthetic, and it remains widely used legitimately for this indication. However, there is increasing evidence of non-medical recreational use of ketamine, particularly in individuals who frequent the night-time economy. The population-level and sub-population (clubbers) prevalence of recreational use of ketamine is not known but is...