Clinicians have limited reliable data to guide management of patients with toxicity from emerging recreational drugs. The harms of these substances are not fully documented, though they are clearly not without risk. Current acute management is pragmatic, primarily extrapolated from experience with longer-established stimulant or hallucinogenic drugs such as amphetamines, MDMA, and LSD.
Acute toxicity from recreational use of alpha methyltryptamine (AMT) in the UK, reported to the National Poisons Information Service from March 2009 to September 2013, involved 63 telephone enquiries, mostly in 2011 and 2012. Most patients were male (68%) with a median age of 20 years; ingestion was the most common route. Compared to mephedrone users, AMT users more frequently experienced acute mental health disturbances (66% vs. 32%), stimulant effects (66% vs. 40%), and seizures (14% vs. 2%). Toxicity from AMT has been encountered since January 2011, though still infrequent.