Drogas sintéticas na Bahia e em Sergipe: estudo sobre a prevalência de estimulantes do tipo anfetamina e novas substâncias psicoativas.

Abstract

The illicit market for synthetic drugs is characterized by a wide variety of psychoactive substances of different chemical and pharmacological classes, such as amphetamine-type stimulants and new psychoactive substances. Knowledge about its chemical composition, as well as the nature and quantity of the active ingredients present, is important for the proper medical care of those who ingest these substances and to establish adequate procedures for chemical and toxicological analysis in forensic laboratories. The objective of this work was to study the prevalence of amphetamine-type stimulants and new psychoactive substances in the states of Bahia and Sergipe, involving police seizures from 2014 to 2019. In a total of 223 samples seized and analyzed, in which predominated ecstasy and Nobésio tablets, 21 substances were identified, using the techniques such as GC-MS, FTIR and 1D-NMR, among classic synthetic drugs and new psychoactive substances, with emphasis on five, whose purities were determined by qNMR, for use as analytical standards. In order to determine the composition of ecstasy and Nobésio tablets an analytical method using GC-MS was developed and optimized. Analyzes of 101 ecstasy tablets showed that MDMA was the main component, being found in 57% of the samples, in amounts between 27.3 and 187.1 mg per tablet. In addition, mixtures of MDMA, MDA, caffeine and synthetic cathinones were observed in 34 samples analyzed. On the other hand, analyzes of 102 Nobésio tablets showed that clobenzorex and caffeine were the only substances present, being found in 93% of the samples in amounts between 2.2 and 34.5 mg per tablet and 4.9 and 118.3 mg per tablet, respectively. As a last step, aiming to investigate the possible use of these drugs, in real cases of criminal occurrences, an analytical method was developed to determine 11 synthetic drugs in post-mortem blood samples, using protein precipitation and LC-MS/MS. The method was applied to fifty samples and in five of them, MDMA, MDA, amphetamine and clobenzorex were identified in concentrations that varied between <LQ (5.0 ng mL-1) for MDMA and 389.3 ng mL-1 for amphetamine. These results demonstrate that the illicit trade in synthetic drugs in these states, as well as the diversity of new substances identified in the seized samples, contributes to the occurrence of intoxication cases, sometimes fatal. Thus, it is necessary to adapt forensic laboratories and to develop new methods, making them capable of analyzing these substances and others that may arise, in seized materials and biological samples, in the context of forensic chemistry and forensic toxicology.