Impact of Novel Psychoactive Substances on Clinical and Forensic Toxicology and Global Public Health

[...]online user forums provide a platform for information sharing among users who seek to fine-tune their drug-taking experiences. [...]the degree of repression on drug users (comprising extensive "workplace drug testing" programs and driving license issues) and the legal status of NPS certainly influenced the dynamics. Given the rapid appearance and disappearance ofNPS in the marketplace, the expensive and cumbersome process of developing new immunoassays cannot keep pace. [...]more sophisticated analytical methods such as liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry or high-resolution mass spectrometry are required to detect newly emerging drugs. The interpretation of a urine test could also be challenging. Since NPS are produced by slight modifications of existing drug structures, many of them produce metabolites common to multiple drugs, thus complicating interpretation since it is challenging to identify the parent drug consumed.