Joe Bradley on June 2, 2023 at 9:43 am Hi Alex, “This lack of tools also makes it difficult for forensic staff to identify illegal substances, leading to a lack of prosecution that can in turn encourage an increase in NPS drug use” Are you referring to identifying the actual chemical structure of a test sample, or once you have this identifying whether it is controlled under acts like the CSA, or the 2012 Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention which for some classes like opioids & cannabinoids, exactly define what surrounding chemical space (e.g NPS) are also considered controlled, in addition to actual named substances and the more vague US “Analogues Act” which talks about similar substances. If the latter e.g “I know the chemicals structure and it looks like a NPS, but is it actually banned already because of chemical similarity to known NPS in country x”, there are tools available to help with this. A series of blogs at:- https://blog.scitegrity.com/news/controlled-substances-lists-and-chemical-families looks into this in more detail and readers of your article may find it interesting Regards Joe Log in to Reply
Najam Najam ud din on October 7, 2023 at 8:13 am Very nicely and precisely put the issue of NPS. Indeed it is a very challenging task along with over burdened forensic labs all over the world. Log in to Reply
Pierre Negri on June 21, 2023 at 1:52 pm Hi Joe, That comment is specifically related to the lacking availability/use of tool (e.g., software) for structural elucidation of NPS. While some tools exist, the current best manner we’ve found for truly identifying the structure of a new NPS is a piecemeal workflow that include chemical drawing software, some software features available to us, Excel spreadsheets we keep in-house, and, at time, good old pen and paper. The legal piece can also be challenging – keeping up with what drugs are specifically scheduled in certain states and what does/does not fall under the definitions of the analogue act and others. Thanks, Alex Krotulski Log in to Reply