Designer drug

For a list of designer drugs, see List of designer drugs.
For chemical substances scientists use for medical and scientific research purposes, see Research chemicals.
This article is about recreational drugs. For drug design in medicinal contexts, see Drug design.

A designer drug is a structural or functional analog of a controlled substance that has been designed to mimic the pharmacological effects of the original drug, while avoiding classification as illegal and/or detection in standard drug tests.[1] Designer drugs include psychoactive substances that have been designated by the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand, as new psychoactive substances (NPS)[note 1] as well as analogs of performance-enhancing drugs such as designer steroids.[2][3]

Some of these designer drugs were originally synthesized by academic or industrial researchers in an effort to discover more potent derivatives with fewer side effects and shorter duration (and possibly also because it is easier to apply for patents for new molecules) and were later co-opted for recreational use. Other designer drugs were prepared for the first time in clandestine laboratories.[4] Because the efficacy and safety of these substances have not been thoroughly evaluated in animal and human trials, the use of some of these drugs may result in unexpected side effects.[5]

The development of designer drugs may be considered a subfield of drug design. The exploration of modifications to known active drugs—such as their structural analogues, stereoisomers, and derivatives—yields drugs that may differ significantly in effects from their "parent" drug (e.g., showing increased potency, or decreased side effects).[4][6] In some instances, designer drugs have similar effects to other known drugs, but have completely dissimilar chemical structures (e.g. JWH-018 vs THC). Despite being a very broad term, applicable to almost every synthetic drug, it is often used to connote synthetic recreational drugs, sometimes even those which have not been designed at all (e.g. LSD, the psychedelic side effects of which were discovered unintentionally).

In some jurisdictions, drugs that are highly similar in structure to a prohibited drug are illegal to trade regardless of that drug's legal status (or indeed whether or not the structurally similar analogue has similar pharmacological effects). In other jurisdictions, their trade is a legal grey area, making them grey market goods. Some jurisdictions may have analogue laws which ban drugs similar in chemical structure to other prohibited drugs, while some designer drugs may be prohibited irrespective of the legal status of structurally similar drugs; in both cases, their trade may take place on the black market.

  1. ^ Wohlfarth A, Weinmann W (May 2010). "Bioanalysis of new designer drugs". Bioanalysis. 2 (5): 965–979. doi:10.4155/bio.10.32. PMID 21083227.
  2. ^ "New Psychoactive Substances (NPS)". Drug War Facts. Common Sense for Drug Policy. 8 July 2021. The term 'new psychoactive substances' had been legally defined by the European Union as a new narcotic or psychotropic drug, in pure form or in a preparation, that is not scheduled under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 or the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, but which may pose a public health threat comparable to that posed by substances listed in those conventions (Council of the European Union decision 2005/387/JHA).
  3. ^ Teale P, Scarth J, Hudson S (January 2012). "Impact of the emergence of designer drugs upon sports doping testing". Bioanalysis. 4 (1): 71–88. doi:10.4155/bio.11.291. PMID 22191595.
  4. ^ a b Carroll FI, Lewin AH, Mascarella SW, Seltzman HH, Reddy PA (February 2012). "Designer drugs: a medicinal chemistry perspective". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1248 (1): 18–38. Bibcode:2012NYASA1248...18C. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06199.x. PMID 22092008. S2CID 5108266.
  5. ^ Reneman L (2003). "Designer drugs: How dangerous are they?". Addiction Mechanisms, Phenomenology and Treatment. pp. 61–83. doi:10.1007/978-3-7091-0541-2_4. ISBN 978-3-211-01316-8. PMID 14582803. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  6. ^ Buchanan JF, Brown CR (1988). "'Designer drugs'. A problem in clinical toxicology". Med Toxicol Adverse Drug Exp. 3 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1007/bf03259928. PMID 3285124. S2CID 28335757.


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