June 2016

esigner drugs, research chemicals, novel psychoactive substances (NPS), and legal highs are all terms used to describe drugs designed to skirt legal controls. Although the trend toward using these drugs picked up steam in the new millennium, the search for new recreational substances— either through repurposing pharmaceutical research or modifying existing drugs of abuse—is not new. The second International Opium Convention, effective in 1928, strictly limited the manufacture and distribution of morphine and heroin (1). In response, chemists began synthesizing esters of morphine such as benzoylmorphine and acetylpropionylmorphine, which have effects similar to those of heroin but were considered legal alternatives at the time.