Safer Tripping: Serotonergic Psychedelics and Drug Checking. Submission and Detection Rates, Potential Harms, and Challenges for Drug Analysis

Drug checking services face challenges from an increasingly complex drug market driven by new psychoactive substances. A literature review found that serotonergic psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, and 2C-B appear in drug checking samples at low but rising rates. Samples often contain adulterants or analogues, including novel substances with unknown toxicological profiles and potentially life-threatening effects. Detecting these psychedelics requires advanced analysis techniques that most drug checking services currently lack. Drug checking can serve as a valuable harm reduction and monitoring tool for serotonergic psychedelics if high-sensitivity analysis methods are used.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Purpose of Review With the continuous emergence of new psychoactive substances, drug checking (DC) services are challenged by an increasingly complex drug market. Considering the resumed scientific and public interest in serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) like LSD, psilocybin, and 2C-B, we present the results of a literature search investigating the presence and proportion of SPs in DC samples. Recent Findings: In 15 identified reports, submission and detection rates of SPs were comparably low, but increasing. Samples contained considerable amounts of adulterations or analogues, mostly novel SPs with unknown toxicological profiles and in some cases potentially life-threatening effects. The detection of SPs, however, requires advanced analysis techniques currently not available to most DC services. Summary: Given the substantial proportion of novel SPs in DC samples and the associated risks, DC can be a valuable harm reduction and monitoring tool for SPs if analysis techniques with high sensitivity are employed