Designer Drugs

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Designer drugs are slightly altered imitations of known, dangerous drugs. They are synthesized, or formed, in laboratories and are designed to produce effects similar to the drugs they imitate. Examples include drugs like amphetamine and methamphetamine, such as MDA, MDMA (known as "ecstasy"), TMA, and MDE (also called "Eve"), or MBDB. Designer drugs are illegal and created solely for the purpose of recreational drug use. Although the goals are different, the processof creating designer drugs resembles the process of developing new and better drugs for medical purposes. This process applies the principles of basic chemistry to change the structure of a drug molecule. Many useful new drugs or changes in older drugs have resulted in improved health care.

Designer drug use in the United States increased in the 1990s, but arrests for designer drug use also sharply increased during the same time period.

The people who make illegal designer drugs range from cookbook amateurs to highly skilled chemists. Designer drugs may be made in the United States or smuggled in from other countries. When designer drugs are made in the United States, the ingredients necessary may be imported or may be illegally purchased or stolen. These illegal substances are produced in secret to avoid federal laws that regulate and control drugs. The street drugs that emerge from this illegal practice are unknown substances that may be toxic (poisonous) and may pose serious health consequences for the drug user. The drug user has no way of knowing what he or she is taking.

The best-known case of designer drug use leading to tragic consequences involves MPTP. A chemist attempted to synthesize a drug not covered by the Controlled Substances Act. He hoped to profit by selling the new drug without breaking any existing laws. The drug he created resembled heroin, but it contained a substance called MPTP. This substance was created by accident because of the chemist's careless mistakes. Drug users who bought the drug on the street developed a syndrome that resembled Parkinson's disease. In this disease, the muscles become rigid; people develop a tremor (shaking) and have trouble with motor skills such as walking and writing. MPTP was later found to be the cause of the syndrome. This discovery came too late for the drug users, because there is no known cure for the disease.

Other designer drugs that have resulted in serious health hazards on the street are drugs designed to imitate fentanyl (Sublimaze). This potent and extremely fast-acting narcotic painkiller is a known drug of abuse. Fentanyl-like designer drugs caused a number of deaths from drug overdoses.

Not every designer drug is thought up by chemists in illegal labs. Some are synthesized originally for medical uses but are never sold for that purpose. One example is the hallucinogenic drug LSD, which was formed as part of a project to create medicines but was later found not to have medical uses. Many hallucinogenic designer drugs such as MDA, MDMA or ecstasy, and MDEA or Eve, are toxic and have caused deaths. Users of these drugs may develop restlessness, agitation, sweating, high blood pressure, and heart problems. MDA causes neurological damage in rats, and may well cause similar damage in humans.

The widespread illegal production and use of designer drugs could result in an epidemic of neurological disorders. People who take drugs without knowing the drug's toxic effects are risking their long-term health for the sake of a brief high.

Club Drugs; Ecstasy; Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (Lsd) and Psychedelics.