Safer Tripping: Serotonergic Psychedelics and Drug Checking. Submission and Detection Rates, Potential Harms, and Challenges for Drug Analysis
Daan van der Gouwe, Tim Hirschfeld, Tomislav Majić, Simon Reiche, Laura Smit-Rigter, Heino Stöver
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Systematic review |
|---|---|
| Topics | Serotonin |
| Keywords | Drug checking Drug testing Substance analysis Harm reduction services Novel psychoactive substances Designer drugs Research chemicals Synthetic drugs Unknown compounds Contaminants Adulterants Public health Drug safety Risk reduction Overdose prevention Drug analysis Chemical analysis Substance identification Analytical chemistry Forensic toxicology |
| Key findings | Serotonergic psychedelics appear in drug checking samples at low but increasing rates, and samples often contain novel analogues or adulterants with unknown toxicological profiles. |
Abstract
Purpose of Review With the continuous emergence of new psychoactive substances, drug checking (DC) services are challenged by an increasingly complex drug market. Considering the resumed scientific and public interest in serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) like LSD, psilocybin, and 2C-B, we present the results of a literature search investigating the presence and proportion of SPs in DC samples. Recent Findings: In 15 identified reports, submission and detection rates of SPs were comparably low, but increasing. Samples contained considerable amounts of adulterations or analogues, mostly novel SPs with unknown toxicological profiles and in some cases potentially life-threatening effects. The detection of SPs, however, requires advanced analysis techniques currently not available to most DC services. Summary: Given the substantial proportion of novel SPs in DC samples and the associated risks, DC can be a valuable harm reduction and monitoring tool for SPs if analysis techniques with high sensitivity are employed