Identification of three unexpected new psychoactive substances at an Australian drug checking service

Abstract

Drug checking is a harm reduction measure which provides people with the opportunity to confirm the identity and purity of substances before consumption. The CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service is Australia’s first fixed-site drug checking service, where clients can learn about the contents of the samples they provide whilst receiving tailored harm reduction and health advice. Three samples were recently presented to the service with the expectation of 4-fluoromethylphenidate (4F-MPH) 1, methoxetamine (MXE) 2 and 3-methylmethcathinone (3-MMC) 3. The identity of all three samples did not meet these expectations and remained unknown on-site as no high confidence identifications were obtained. However, further analysis by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, high resolution gas chromatography-electron ionisation-mass spectrometry (GC-EI-MS) and liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) at the Australian National University (ANU) allowed for the structure elucidation of the three samples as 4-fluoro-α-pyrrolidinoisohexanophenone (4F-α-PiHP) 4, 1-(4-fluorobenzyl)-4-methylpiperazine (4F-MBZP) 5 and N-propyl-1,2-diphenylethylamine (propylphenidine) 6 respectively. Given all three samples were not of the expected identity and have not yet been described in the literature, this study presents a full characterisation of each substance. As exemplified by this rapid identification of three unexpected new psychoactive substances, drug checking can be used as an effective method to monitor the unregulated drug market.