Rapid screening method for new psychoactive substances of forensic interest: electrochemistry and analytical determination of phenethylamines derivatives (NBOMe) via cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry

摘要

The NBOMe derivatives are phenethylamines derived from the 2C class of hallucinogens. Only a few human pharmacologic\udstudies have been conducted on these drugs and several cases of intoxication and deaths have been reported. Presently,\udNBOMe are not a part of the routine drugs-of-abuse screening procedure for many police forces and there are no rapid immunoassay\udscreening tests that can detect the presence of those compounds. In this paper, the voltammetric behavior of 25B NBOMe and\ud25I NBOMe were investigated and their electroanalytical characteristics determined for the first time. A novel, fast and sensitive\udscreening method for the identification of the two most common NBOMes (25B-NBOMe and 25I-NBOMe) in real samples is\udreported. The method uses the electrochemical oxidation of these molecules to produce an analytical signal that can be related to the\udNBOMe concentration with an average lower limit of quantitation of 0.01mg/mL for both of them. The method is selective enough\udto identify the two compounds individually, even given the great similarity in their structure.