Pharmacy world & science : PWS
April 1, 2004
Douwe De Boer, Ingrid Bosman
89 citations
Between 1994 and 2002, products sold in Dutch smartshops as synthetic drugs were purchased and analyzed. Most tablets contained one of the phenethylamine designer drugs 2C-B, 2C-T-2, or 2C-T-7, with new drugs appearing on the market roughly every three years. Accompanying leaflets provided extensive but partly misleading information. Scientific data on health risks and detection of these 2C-series drugs was scarce. No intoxications had been reported in the European Union, and no centralized legal actions had been taken. The absence of observed intoxications may justify the lack of EU legal actions, but could also reflect toxicologists' inability to detect these substances or unawareness of the phenomenon. EU authorities should promote availability of standards, validated assays, and scientific knowledge.
Toxicology
January 5, 2005
Helena Carmo, Jan G Hengstler, Douwe De Boer et al.
85 citations
The psychoactive designer drug 2C-B is broken down by liver cells from humans, monkeys, dogs, rabbits, rats, and mice through oxidative deamination and demethylation, producing several metabolites. A previously unknown metabolite, 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxy-phenol (BDMP), appeared only in mouse cells, while another metabolite, 2-(4-bromo-2-hydroxy-5-methoxyphenyl)-ethanol (B-2-HMPE), formed in human, monkey, and rabbit cells but not in dog, rat, or mouse cells. Toxic effects on liver cells varied little across species but showed large differences among cells from three human donors, indicating that individual human variation may be more important than species differences in determining 2C-B toxicity.
Journal of chromatography. B, Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences
November 25, 2004
Helena Carmo, Douwe De Boer, Fernando Remião et al.
32 citations
The psychoactive drug 2C-B, sold as 'Ecstasy', is metabolized in mice, producing several metabolites detectable in urine by GC/MS. Unchanged 2C-B and these metabolites were identified, providing data that may help understand the drug's biological and toxicological effects and aid forensic analysis of samples from human abusers.