Synthetic cannabis alternatives are far more potent than their natural counterparts and can lead to accidental overdoses. Spice, a synthetic street drug, aims to mimic the psychoactive effects of cannabis. It's associated with a range of dangerous side effects, including seizures, heart attacks and psychotic episodes, and was implicated in nearly half of non-natural deaths in prisons among males in England and Wales, between 2015 and 2020.
The 2016 Psychoactive Substances Act made it an offence to produce or supply them in the UK, and although it prevented their sale in high street shops, high-level use remains in more vulnerable user groups, particularly within the homeless population.
Drug checking aims to reduce harm by giving users accurate information on the purity and content of substances. Testing tents may be a familiar sight to festival goers, but they’re now becoming more commonplace in towns and cities too. Researchers and third-party organisations, such as The Loop, examine confiscated drugs or substances left in amnesty bins. If testers find something potentially harmful, contaminated, or advertised as something it is not, warnings can be shared across the festival. In towns and cities, information about the contamination of batch of a substance can be returned on the same day, potentially preventing its use and further harm or deaths.
Researchers in the Department of Life Sciences are studying the composition of new synthetic drugs, and providing information to the police. On-site facilities allow researchers to check drugs and return accurate results within 24-48 hours.
How drug checking works
Stephen Husbands, a professor in the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation and his team are using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to identify unknown compounds in drug samples. NMR provides physical, chemical, electronic, and structural information about samples by analysing the electromagnetic signals emitted by molecules. Another method the team uses, mass spectrometry, measures the molecular weight of compounds.
By identifying the chemical structures of molecules in the samples, the team can detect the presence of psychoactive substances. The methods also produce unique ‘fingerprints’ for samples, allowing the team to identify molecules with no previous reference. This is particularly useful when checking confiscated drugs, as well as analysing substances that haven’t yet hit the market.
Another researcher in the department, Chris Pudney and his team have also recently developed a portable device that can detect the presence of spice on a huge variety of materials, such as paper or clothing. The device is a significant advance in drug checking research as it is easy to use and provides instant results.
The challenge of ever-evolving substances
Synthetic cannabinoids are chemically diverse and are constantly evolving. Within the synthetic cannabinoid series alone, there are over 100 different compounds. This makes them ever more challenging to detect. The team’s portable device can detect a range of molecules in psychoactive substance allowing researchers to rapidly respond when new variants emerge
While drug checking can have a significant positive impact, some have raised concerns that it might give people a false sense of confidence in drug consumption. Strong evidence suggests, however, that it plays a vital role in reducing the harm of recreational drugs, giving people more information to make the best decisions for themselves.
The University of Bath is working with a network of other universities, police, prisons, charities, and addiction and mental health services, sharing data and monitoring hotspots of drug use. In the case of the sudden appearance of a novel psychoactive substance, the network can analyse it and share information before it spreads to different cities. Academics can then share molecule fragments they’ve found using methods such as NMR on databases for others in the network.
Along with regular drug checks with local charities, the team are developing test strips to allow users to test their substances in their own time. They’re working with charities to find the best methods that appeal most to users. The strips will work on a lateral flow system, very similar to at-home COVID-19 tests.
Tackling the rising risk of vapes
The most common way of taking synthetic cannabinoids is through inhalation. Vapes are becoming increasingly popular as they are accessible and user friendly and can be easily modified with various synthetic substances. A recent paper published by the university found that vapes in schools have been contaminated with spice, posing a serious health risk to students
The team are continuing to explore the different methods of inhalation for synthetic drugs and the harm each can cause. Their current work is focussing on vapes as a method of drug delivery, due to their increasing prevalence.