Safer Tripping: Serotonergic Psychedelics and Drug Checking. Submission and Detection Rates, Potential Harms, and Challenges for Drug Analysis
January 1, 2021 Gouwe, Daan van Der, Hirschfeld, Tim, Majić, Tomislav et al.
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.