Lecture 3- Exam 3

Question 1

What are designer drugs?

Answer 1

Drugs created in the 1960s to skirt existing drug laws

(cocaine, meth, PCP LSD- new laws were put into place so these were made to be a loop hole- drugs that created same effects but were not illegal)

Question 2

Designer drugs were developed by slightly modifying structures of:

Answer 2

Other psychoactive drugs

Question 3

NPS:

Answer 3

New psychoactive substances (NPS)

Question 4

What are the two most prevalent NPS?

Answer 4

1. Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs)
2. Cathinones

Question 5

In 2010 substance abuse and mental health services administration (SAMHSA) reported 11,406 emergency department visits for synthetic cannabioids. What was this number just a year later in 2011? What has happened with this number since?

Answer 5

Nearly tripled in 2011 at 28,531 and since has stayed pretty stable but still a significant amount of users out there

Question 6

In 1970 the government passed the:

Answer 6

Controlled susbtance act

Question 7

the controlled substsance act ended up creating:

Answer 7

Levels 1-5 of drugs

Question 8

Cocaine would be classified as _____ because:

Answer 8

C1- No legitimate medical use and highly addictive

Question 9

C1 —> C5

The addictive potential:

Answer 9

Decreases

Question 10

Anything classified by C1-C5 are:

Answer 10

controlled substances

Question 11

What was put into place by legistlation in 1986?

Answer 11

Controlled substance Analog Enforcement act

Question 12

Used to address the controlled substance analogs that were intended for human consumption under schedule one

(the attempt to get around the skirting action that happened back in the 60s and 70s – trying to modify existing psychoactive drugs to make them not illegal)

Answer 12

Controlled substances Analog enforcement act

Question 13

This act said that substances had to be structurally and substantially similar to existing C1 and C2 drugs:

Answer 13

Controlled subtstances analogue enforcement act

Question 14

What was the problem with controlled susbtances analogue enforcement act?

Answer 14

it specified “for human consumption only” which created another loop hole for drug designers and drug purchasers

(so many illicit drugs now will say “not for human consumption” on the label to make it legal)

Question 15

Because of the failure of the Controlled substances analogue enforcement act, these specific synthetic substances were temporarily put in the category of Schedule one due to:

Answer 15

Synthetic Drug Abuse Prevention Act of 2012

Question 16

What did the synthetic drug abuse prevention act of 2012 do?

Answer 16

Put these synthetic drugs (26 cannabinoids and cathinones into the group of schedule 1 and this allowed time for research on this stuff to determine what is this stuff? how addictive is it? how dangerous? etc.

Question 17

What are some difficulties with legistlation on synthetic drugs?

Answer 17

1. Ban by name (if not listed by exact name, not considered illegal)
2. Ban by molecular structure (same problem as name)

These drugs are being produced so quickly that its pretty much impossible to keep up with the new names and molecular structures

Question 18

Because legislation of synthetic drugs based on names and molecular structure is too difficult, what is a third option?

Answer 18

Analogue principle

Question 19

Legislation under the “analogue principle” states that:

Answer 19

Drugs or agents with a similar chemical scaffold and pharmacologic activity could technically be regulated in a way that is similar to its psychoactive archetype

Example: Cocaine is illegal, so if a drug structurally similar with similar pharmacologic effects as cocaine was invented it would fall under the category of cocaine

Question 20

What is the biggest problem with the legislation approach “analogue principle”

Answer 20

There is no definitive consensus regarding what actually constitutes an analogue

Also if something comes to the market for the first time pharmacologic data on it is not readily available so we don’t know what its similar to at times

(are we talking the same structure, same effects, same addictiveness, same danger)

Question 21

Some have proposed the idea of scheduling it a C1 through C5 based on receptor activity. Why is this a dangerous approach?

Answer 21

Receptors are not specific enough

Using cocaine as an example:

Cocaine activates alpha and beta receptors so if all of a sudden we made anything illegal that activated alpha and beta receptors then we would be out about 50% of our available drugs

Question 22

NPS are created in ____ and don’t require any ____ material meaning they are synthetic

Answer 22

Labs; plants

Question 23

NPS require _______

These are generally produced in

Answer 23

1056