A new drug is invented every week: experts

Carolina Gomez Mena

La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, November 15, 2024, p. 16

In the world, a new drug is invented almost every week, according to data until 2022, since that year 44 were identified. totally new psychoactive substancesof which 15 percent were synthetic opioids, 22 percent synthetic cannabinoids and 35 percent stimulants, said Raúl Martín del Campo Sánchez, area director at the Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz National Institute of Psychiatry.

At the academic symposium on Addictions and New Substances, organized by the Monte Fénix Center for Higher Studies (CESMF), the specialist commented that illegal substances are invented by chemists hired by drug cartels around the world, most frequently in Europe and the United States.

In a later interview with The Daythe CESMF teacher also explained that when criminal gangs They run out of the substance they normally sell, so they quickly synthesize another drug that is similar with another precursor, so that their market does not run out of supply..

With these practices, cartels can evade justice, the expert indicated. In the law of each country there are the specific formulas for each illegal drug. If an organized group makes an alteration to that formula, then it is already a new unclassified formula, which makes it possible to evade the action of justice. If the drug shipment is seized, they can argue through their lawyers that it is not an illegal drug..

This also increases the risk for consumers, because they access substances They don’t know what they are or what effects they will have.added Martín del Campo.

Clara Fleiz Bautista, a researcher in medical sciences at the National Institute of Psychiatry, warned about the detection of fentanyl adulterated with xylazine, a powerful sedative for veterinary use, in Tijuana and Mexicali. In the samples analyzed with a mass spectrometer, there was 77 percent positivity for fentanyl, 58 percent for methamphetamine, and 20 percent for the new adulterant xylazine, which increases the risks of consumption.

The specialist, whose lines of research are drugs injected on the northern border, particularly heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, explained that by mixing this with xylazine, This substance binds to that opioid and can lead to overdose, because people become completely sedated.

Xylazine has been linked to the appearance of skin abscesses, which are called cuerazos, because it is a vasoconstrictor medication.

Fleiz Bautista explained that the research project on the northern border is beginning to yield results and the finding of fentanyl mixed with xylazine has already been reported to the National Commission for Mental Health and Addictions.