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Formula | C18H26N2O |
Molar mass | 286.419 g·mol−1 |
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AP-238 is an opioid designer drug related to drugs such as azaprocin and bucinnazine, with around the same potency as morphine. [2] It was first discovered in Italy in the 1960s but was never marketed, [3] subsequently appearing on the illicit market around 2020 and being detected in both Slovenia and the USA. [4] [5]
Carfentanil or carfentanyl, sold under the brand name Wildnil, is an extremely potent opioid analgesic used in veterinary medicine to anesthetize large animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses. It is typically administered in this context by tranquilizer dart. Carfentanil has also been used in humans to image opioid receptors. It has additionally been used as a recreational drug, typically by injection, insufflation, or inhalation. Deaths have been reported in association with carfentanil.
Azaprocin is a drug which is an opioid analgesic with approximately ten times the potency of morphine, and a fast onset and short duration of action. It was discovered in 1963, but has never been marketed.
Perzinfotel (EAA-090) is a drug which acts as a potent NMDA antagonist. It has neuroprotective effects and has been investigated for the treatment of stroke, but lacks analgesic effects. Nevertheless, it shows a good safety profile compared to older drugs, although further development of this drug has been discontinued.
SB-612,111 is an opioid receptor ligand which is a potent and selective antagonist for the nociceptin receptor (ORL-1), several times more potent than the older drug J-113,397. It does not have analgesic effects in its own right, but prevents the development of hyperalgesia, and also shows antidepressant effects in animal studies.
BDPC is a potent fully synthetic opioid with a distinctive arylcyclohexylamine chemical structure. It was developed by Daniel Lednicer at Upjohn in the 1970s. Initial studies estimated that it was around 10,000 times the strength of morphine in animal models. However, later studies using more modern techniques assigned a value of 504 times the potency of morphine for the more active trans-isomer. This drug was first seized along with three kilograms of acetylfentanyl in an April 25, 2013 police action in Montreal, Canada, and has reportedly continued to be available on the designer drug market internationally. Analogues where the para-bromine is replaced by chlorine or a methyl group retain similar activity, while the meta-hydroxyl derivative demonstrated robust antagonist activity.
4'-Methyl-α-pyrrolidinohexiophenone (MPHP) is a stimulant compound which has been reported as a novel designer drug. It is closely related to pyrovalerone, being simply its chain-lengthened homologue. In the pyrrolidinophenone series, stimulant activity is maintained so long as the positions of the aryl, ketone and pyrrolidinyl groups are held constant, while the alkyl backbone can be varied anywhere between three and as many as seven carbons, with highest potency usually seen with the pentyl or isohexyl backbone, and a variety of substituents are tolerated on the aromatic ring.
Substituted cathinones, which include some stimulants and entactogens, are derivatives of cathinone. They feature a phenethylamine core with an alkyl group attached to the alpha carbon, and a ketone group attached to the beta carbon, along with additional substitutions. Cathinone occurs naturally in the plant khat whose leaves are chewed as a recreational drug.
AH-7921 is an opioid analgesic drug selective for the μ-opioid receptor, having around 90% the potency of morphine when administered orally. It was discovered in the 1970s by a team at Allen and Hanburys located in the United Kingdom. The drug is considered a new psychoactive substance (NPS) in which it is synthetically created in laboratories to mimic that of controlled substances. The substance has also been sold on the internet since 2012 as a "research chemical". When sold online it may be called the alternative name doxylam, not to be confused with doxylamine. AH-7921 has never progressed to clinical trials. The DEA is not aware of any medical usage in the United States, and has not insisted the Health and Human Services department (HHS) to conduct any medical research of the substance's uses.
MT-45 (IC-6) is an opioid analgesic drug invented in the 1970s by Dainippon Pharmaceutical Co. It is chemically a 1-substituted-4-(1,2-diphenylethyl) piperazine derivative, which is structurally unrelated to most other opioid drugs. Racemic MT-45 has around 80% the potency of morphine, with almost all opioid activity residing in the (S) enantiomer. It has been used as a lead compound from which a large family of potent opioid drugs have been developed, including full agonists, partial agonists, and antagonists at the three main opioid receptor subtypes. Fluorinated derivatives of MT-45 such as 2F-MT-45 are significantly more potent as μ-opioid receptor agonists, and one of its main metabolites 1,2-diphenylethylpiperazine also blocks NMDA receptors.
Butyrfentanyl or butyrylfentanyl is a potent short-acting synthetic opioid analgesic drug. It is an analog of fentanyl with around one quarter of its potency. One of the first mentions of this drug can be found in document written by The College on Problem of Drug Dependence, where it is mentioned as N-butyramide fentanyl analog. This document also states that the article describing its clinical effects was published in 1987. It is an agonist for the μ-opioid receptors.
Acetylfentanyl is an opioid analgesic drug that is an analog of fentanyl. Studies have estimated acetylfentanyl to be 15 times more potent than morphine, which would mean that despite being somewhat weaker than fentanyl, it is nevertheless still several times stronger than pure heroin. It has never been licensed for medical use and instead has only been sold as a designer drug. Acetylfentanyl was discovered at the same time as fentanyl itself and had only rarely been encountered on the illicit market in the late 1980s. However, in 2013, Canadian police seized 3 kilograms of acetylfentanyl. As a μ-opioid receptor agonist, acetylfentanyl may serve as a direct substitute for heroin or other opioids. Common side effects of fentanyl analogs are similar to those of fentanyl itself, which include itching, nausea and potentially serious respiratory depression, which can be life-threatening. Fentanyl analogs have killed hundreds of people throughout Europe and the former Soviet republics since the most recent resurgence in use began in Estonia in the early 2000s, and novel derivatives continue to appear.
THJ-2201 is an indazole-based synthetic cannabinoid that presumably acts as a potent agonist of the CB1 receptor and has been sold online as a designer drug.
N-Ethylhexedrone (also known as α-ethylaminocaprophenone, N-ethylnorhexedrone, hexen, and NEH) is a stimulant of the cathinone class that acts as a norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI) with IC50 values of 0.0978 and 0.0467 μM, respectively. N-Ethylhexedrone was first mentioned in a series of patents by Boehringer Ingelheim in the 1960s which led to the development of the better-known drug methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). Since the mid-2010s, N-ethylhexedrone has been sold online as a designer drug. In 2018, N-ethylhexedrone was the second most common drug of the cathinone class to be identified in Drug Enforcement Administration seizures.
Bucinnazine is an opioid analgesic drug that was widely used in China to treat pain in cancer patients as of 1986. It is one of the most potent compounds among a series of piperazine-amides first synthesized and reported in Japan in the 1970s. Bucinnazine has analgesic potency comparable to that of morphine but with a relatively higher therapeutic index.
α-PHiP is a stimulant drug of the cathinone class that has been sold online as a designer drug. It is a positional isomer of pyrovalerone, with the methyl group shifted from the 4-position of the aromatic ring to the 4-position of the acyl chain. In a classic 2006 study of pyrrolidinyl cathinone derivatives by Meltzer et al. at Organix, the alpha-isobutyl derivative of pyrovalerone, O-2494, was found to have the highest potency in vitro as an inhibitor of the dopamine transporter of the alpha substituted derivatives tested; however, it was not until ten years later in July 2016 that α-PHiP was first identified as a designer drug, when it was reported to the EMCDDA by a forensic laboratory in Slovenia.
MDMB-4en-PINACA is an indazole-based synthetic cannabinoid that has been sold online as a designer drug. MDMB-4en-PINACA was first identified in Europe in 2017. In 2021, MDMB-4en-PINACA was the most common synthetic cannabinoid identified by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the United States. MDMB-4en-PINACA differs from 5F-MDMB-PINACA due to replacement of 5-fluoropentyl with a pent-4-ene moiety (4-en).
Brorphine is a piperidine-based opioid analgesic compound. Brorphine was originally discovered in a 2018 paper investigating functionally biased opioid compounds, with the intention of finding safer analgesics that produce less respiratory depression than typical opioids. Brorphine was originally reported to be highly biased, with an EC50 of 4.8nM for GTPγS binding and 182nM for β-arrestin recruitment, however a more recent study found no significant bias for any of the compounds tested, including brorphine. Its safety profile in any animal model has never been established. Despite the lack of safety information on the compound, brorphine has been sold as a designer drug since mid-2019, initially being identified in the US Midwest, though it has since been found in 2020 in Belgium. It is related in chemical structure to compounds such as benzylfentanyl and bezitramide, though it is sufficiently structurally distinct to fall outside the formal definition of a "fentanyl analogue" in jurisdictions such as the US and New Zealand which have Markush structure controls over this family of drugs.
Etodesnitazene is a benzimidazole derived opioid analgesic drug, which was originally developed in the late 1950s alongside etonitazene and a range of related derivatives. It is many times less potent than etonitazene itself, but still 70x more potent than morphine in animal studies. Corresponding analogues where the N,N-diethyl group is replaced by piperidine or pyrrolidine rings also retain significant activity. Etodesnitazene has been sold as a designer drug, first being identified in both Poland and Finland in March 2020.