{"id":1085,"date":"2020-08-26T09:33:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T09:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clinlabint.3wstaging.nl\/hair-testing-shows-high-prevalence-of-new-psychoactive-substance-use\/"},"modified":"2021-01-08T11:09:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T11:09:33","slug":"hair-testing-shows-high-prevalence-of-new-psychoactive-substance-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/hair-testing-shows-high-prevalence-of-new-psychoactive-substance-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Hair testing shows high prevalence of new psychoactive substance use"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over a fourth of the eighty samples tested positive for new psychoactive substances.<\/span>
\nIn the last decade hundreds of new psychoactive substances (NPS) have emerged in the drug market, taking advantage of the delay occurring between their introduction into the market and their legal ban.  <\/span>According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) NPS describes a recently emerged drug that may pose a public health threat.  The DEA issues a quarterly Emerging Threat Report, which catalogues the newest identified NPS.
\nNPS tend to mimic the psychotropic effects of traditional drugs of abuse, but their acute and chronic toxicity, and side-effects are largely unknown.  <\/span>While seizure data from the DEA is often used to indicate what new drugs are being sold in the US, there is a lack of research examining and confirming who has been using such drugs.
\nJoseph J. Palamar, PhD, MPH, a New York University researcher, has been researching incidental and intentional use of NPS by young adults.  <\/span>His current line of inquiry has focused on survey methods, qualitative interviews, and hair sampling to ascertain frequency and type of NPS use by nightclub-goers–a demographic which traditionally has a relaxed view towards recreational drug experimentation and use.
\nNPS are common adulterants in drugs such as ecstasy (MDMA), which has seen an increase in popularity since it became marketed as \u201cMolly\u201d.  <\/span>Ironically, \u201cMolly\u201d connotes a product that is pure MDMA. In a related study, Palamar and his team found that four out of ten nightclub\/festival attendees who used ecstasy or \u201cMolly\u201d tested positive for \u201cbath salts\u201d despite reporting no use.
\nIn their current study, \u201cHair Testing for Drugs of Abuse and New Psychoactive Substances in a High-Risk Population,\u201d Dr. Alberto Salomone, an affiliated researcher at the Centro Regionale Antidoping e di Tossicologia \u201cA. Bertinaria\u201d, Orbassano, Turin, Italy and Dr. Palamar, affiliated with NYU\u2019s Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR), collected hair samples from 80 young adults outside of New York City nightclubs and dance festivals, from July through September of 2015.  <\/span>Hair samples from high-risk nightclub and dance music attendees were tested for 82 drugs and metabolites (including NPS) using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography\u2013tandem mass spectrometry.
\n\u201cHair analysis represents a reliable and well-established means of clinical and forensic investigations to evaluate drug exposure, said Dr. Salomone.  <\/span>\u201cHair is the most helpful specimen when either long-time retrospective information on drug consumption is of interest.\u201d \u201cMost NPS can no longer be detected in urine, blood, or saliva within hours or days after consumption, but hair is particularly beneficial because many drugs can be detected months after use.\u201d
\nOf the eighty samples, twenty-six tested positive for at least one NPS\u2014the most common being a \u201cbath salt\u201d (synthetic cathinone) called butylone (present in twenty-five samples). The \u201cbath salts\u201d methylone and even alpha-PVP (a.k.a.: \u201cFlakka\u201d) were also detected. The researchers find the presence of Flakka alarming as this drug has been associated with many episodes of erratic behaviour and even death in Florida. Other new drugs detected included new stimulants called 4-FA and 5\/6-APB.<\/span>
\n\u201cWe found that many people in the nightclub and festival scene have been using new drugs and our previous research has found that many of these people have been using unknowingly,\u201d said Dr. Palamar, also an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center (NYULMC).<\/span>
\nHair analysis proved a powerful tool to Drs. Salomone and Palamar and their team, allowing them to gain objective biological drug-prevalence information, free from possible biases of unintentional or unknown intake and untruthful reporting of use.<\/span><\/p>\n

NYU Langone Medical Center<\/span>
\nwww.nyu.edu\/about\/news-publications\/news\/2017\/march\/hair-testing-shows-high-prevalence-of-new-psychoactive-substance.html<\/link><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over a fourth of the eighty samples tested positive for new psychoactive substances. In the last decade hundreds of new psychoactive substances (NPS) have emerged in the drug market, taking advantage of the delay occurring between their introduction into the market and their legal ban.  According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) NPS describes a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}