Intoxication of dogs and cats with common stimulating, hallucinogenic and dissociative recreational drugs.

Summary

As recreational drug use rises globally, veterinarians report increasing cases of pet intoxication from substances like cocaine, MDMA, and amphetamines. Dogs and cats can experience severe reactions when exposed to these drugs, whether through accidental ingestion or malicious intent. While pets process these substances differently than humans, they often show similar symptoms - from agitation to life-threatening complications. Quick diagnosis is crucial but challenging, as owners may hesitate to disclose drug presence. Treatment focuses on supportive care and specific antidotes when available.

Abstract

Pets can have accidental, intentional, or malicious exposure to illicit drugs. It is a growing concern over the last decade because there is an increase in usage of illicit drugs in humans and diagnosis is difficult. Owners are often not aware of exposure, or they are reluctant to admit possession of recreational drugs in the household due to potential legal consequences. In addition, illicit drugs sold on the black market are often adulterated with other substances resulting in non-specific clinical presentation and aggravation of symptoms. There are affordable onsite diagnostic tests on the market which could facilitate diagnosis of intoxication with illicit drugs, but they give a lot of false positive results due to low specificity of the tests. In this paper we gathered information about the most common recreational drugs such as amphetamines, methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), phencyclidine (PCP), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin mushrooms and cocaine in terms of toxicokinetic properties, mechanism of toxic action, clinical presentation and treatment in dogs and cats.

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