Synthetic Dialectic

Banning New Drugs:What is the Path Forward?Eighteen months ago, in apost on novel synthetic drugs in the cannabinoid and cathinone families, I wrote that the new fake marijuana and fake Ecstasy were “very nearly the perfect overdose drugs.”  An MDMA-like stimulant called PMMA was implicated in a number of deaths in Florida, Chicago, and Ireland back then. PMMA, like many synthetic highs, is toxic at low doses, and takes a fair amount of time to take effect, thereby encouraging double dosing.A year and a half later, what has changed? Today ’s synthetic pharmaceuticals are not coming from secret underground laboratories, but rather from legitimate, existing Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies. In acommentary published inAddiction, Michael Evans-Brown and Roumen Sedefov of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon present an unusually dystopian picture of new psychoactive substances fueling ever-increasing complexities in the world drug market. The authors refer to the situation as a textbook example “of what can happen when entrepreneurs exploit globalization and technology.” They write:The market continues to grow. Consumers are no longer limited to psychonauts and clubbers, but include the vulnerable and marginalized, such as problem drug users and prisoners … manufacturers have replacement substances ready for sale even before a substance is controlled; the recipes for many thousands more are in the scientific and patent...
Source: Addiction Inbox - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: blogs