Drug traffickers have found a way to trick law enforcement agencies by using one of our body’s most powerful tools: our metabolism. Welcome to the world of prodrugs.
Prodrugs are substances that can cause effects only after being broken down by enzymes in the digestive system or other chemical reactions in the body.
Although they have legitimate pharmacological uses (5% to 7% of approved drugs fall into this category), their use Because street drugs are a relatively new phenomenon.
Most illicit drugs work by: interact with specific brain cell receptors, stimulates or blocks the release of chemicals called neurotransmitters. They persist for a short period of time, then transform into inactive or less active chemicals and are usually excreted from the body in urine.
However, prodrugs require removal or replacement of a small portion of the molecule before they can act at their receptors. This is done in the body by a natural process. ALD-52 For example, (1-acetyl-LSD) is a prodrug that is converted to LSD in the body after two carbon atoms and one oxygen atom are removed.
somewhat report ALD-52 has been shown to have been around since the 1960s, and was first formally detected in 2016 by French authorities.The UK government quickly listed this prodrug as a controlled substance already in 2014Despite no reports of drug seizures or known harm.Since then many other prodrugs identified.
Seizures of LSD prodrugs such as ALD-52 increased during the peak period. The coronavirus pandemic in Italy. Japanese authorities are dealing with an increasing number of cases. Similar LSD prodrug compounds. and in Brazil first report Some of these LSD prodrugs will be manufactured in 2022.
The party drug GHB includes: Prodrug equivalent. It is called GBL (gamma butyrolactone).
The UK has introduced stricter controls on GBL, which is usually marketed as a cleaning agent. in 2022. Following strong recommendations from the government’s Substance Abuse Advisory Board, GBL is now classified as a Class B drug alongside cannabis and ketamine.
For stimulants, some over-the-counter drugs are known to convert to amphetamines in the body, which can be dangerous. abused Its potential psychoactive effects justify strict control in prescribing.
Drug traffickers have also developed ways to mask illicit MDMA (ecstasy) by adding small molecules that can be removed by chemical reaction or contact in the stomach. with stomach acid.
difficult to detect
A major problem with prodrugs is that they are difficult to detect.the police need Reference sample You can compare it to drugs or use advanced instruments to discover its molecular structure.
These new drugs are often overlooked because the list of these compounds is unknown and subtle chemical changes can lead to different patterns of interest. It also explains why many appeared only in police reports over the past decade.
For biological samples (blood, urine, saliva, etc.) there is another problem. Since prodrugs must be transformed in the body before they can be activated, they actually look like this: absence Because, in case of a fatal overdose, the substance causing harm and death is the product of that transformation.
Distinguishing prodrugs from the more classical components that are transformed is therefore an obstacle. Although the overall impact of death is the same, proper identification of the drugs originally used can help show trends in illicit sales, use and availability.
As for the GHB prodrugs, namely GBL and 1,4-butanedione, lawmakers are slowly incorporating them into stricter and more specific legislation. However, many countries fall into a gray area when it comes to LSD prodrugs.
While France, Japan and the UK nominally include ALD-52 and 1p-LSD in their Controlled Substances Act, the US and Canada must prove that they are analogues, i.e. have similar molecular structures and may cause the same effects, or they are exempt from current legislation.
In the UK, a new psychotropic substance defined as Either a compound regulated by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 or a compound regulated by the Substance Abuse Act (post-2008).
However, evidence of psychoactive effects is required for inclusion in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Defined as compounds that may affect mental function. cognition, mood, emotion.
Psychoactivity can also be determined in the laboratory test. A drug is incubated with a small number of cells, and researchers measure whether the drug binds to surface proteins called receptors. However, many prodrugs do not bind to receptors prior to conversion.
If a substance is not legally listed as regulated and requires laboratory testing (molecular similarity, binding to receptors, etc.), there is even more room for challenge in court.
Even if such seizures are rare and do not reach the numbers of more commonly used drugs such as cocaine, cannabis and heroin, their appearance in the illicit market should serve as a warning sign that trends in the illicit drug market may change.
The strength and durability of the effects may be unknown, but it is also difficult to prosecute those who supplied these prodrugs.
A new psychoactive substance is circulating loosely on the illicit market every week in 2021the diversity of drugs on the market has been shown to be: Main issue For toxicologists and forensic scientists.
Julio de Carvalho PonceForensic Lecturer, University of Winchester
This article is reprinted from conversation Under Creative Commons License.read Original work.
