Candyflipping and Other Combinations: Identifying Drug–Drug Combinations from an Online Forum
Frontiers in Psychiatry April 30, 2018 Michael Chary, David Yi, Alex F. Manini 32 citations
Over the last two decades, novel psychoactive substances (NPS) have emerged as synthetic compounds or derivatives of known drugs. Analyzing 20 years of posts from the Lycaeum forum using natural language processing and machine learning, the study found that discussions about NPS often describe combining nootropics with sedative-hypnotics, and stimulants with plant hallucinogens or psychiatric medications. Conversations mentioning synthetic hallucinogens tended to separate into those about amphetamine-derived and ergot-derived compounds, and rarely mentioned plant hallucinogens. Bath salts were commonly discussed alongside sedative-hypnotics or nootropics, while canonical stimulants appeared with plant hallucinogens and psychiatric medications. All substances were frequently compared to MDMA, DMT, cocaine, or atropine to describe their effects. This represents the largest analysis of online polysubstance use patterns to date.