Fogarty MF, Logan BK, Diamond FX, Mickloas L, Shuda SA, Krotulski AJ
Journal of Forensic ScienceThe NBOMe drug class comprises N‐(2‐methoxybenzyl) derivatives of the 2C family of phenethylamines (e.g., 2C‐C, 2C‐E) [ 1]. NBOMes are potent hallucinogenic drugs that first appeared in the street drug supply in the United States in approximately 2010. Three examples are shown in Fig. (Top). NBOMes are readily identified in seized drug materials by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) by comparison with standard reference materials or electronic databases [ 2].
In 2016, a related series of hallucinogenic drugs, the N‐(2‐hydroxybenzyl) derivatives (or NBOH series), were identified in seized material in Europe [ 3]. In the United States, our laboratory has since confirmed the presence of 25E‐NBOH (January 2018) and 25C‐NBOH (August 2018) in seized drug material from international ports of entry [[ 4]]. Examples of NBOHs are shown along with their corresponding NBOMe and 2C derivatives in Fig.
During validation of our GC‐MS screening methods for the detection of NBOH compounds, our laboratory determined that the NBOHs are unstable during GC‐MS analysis and degrade almost completely to the corresponding 2C compound in the instrument. Consequently, injection of an extract containing an NBOH compound would lead to the misidentification of the substance as its 2C analog. This is problematic as a different compound from the one present in the seized material could be erroneously identified and reported. This could have legal ramification due to differences in scheduling in different jurisdictions. Examples of chromatography for 25C‐NBOH can be seen in Fig. . All NBOH compounds tested in our laboratory (25E‐NBOH, 25C‐NBOH, 25B‐NBOH) exhibit this breakdown behavior when analyzed by GC‐MS.
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