Scientists on trail of ‘legal high’ makers

Researchers are developing a way of testing “legal high” drugs to find out who made them.

The drugs are known by names such as Ivory Wave and NRG-1 and are sold as bath salts, plant food and incense.

They mimic the effects of such illegal drugs as amphetamine, cocaine and Ecstasy. Although they can be dangerous, many have not yet been made illegal and are difficult to detect with current drug tests.

The bath-salts drug can cause euphoria, paranoia, anxiety and hallucinations. They often contain mephedrone, a synthetic compound structurally related to methcathinone which is found in khat, a plant that, like mephedrone itself, is illegal in many countries.

Scientists at Strathclyde University and the James Hutton Institute are working on a way of tracing the source of the raw materials, which could provide information about who made them.

Oliver Sutcliffe, of Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said: “The new method we have used has enabled us to work backwards and trace the substances back to their starting materials.

“These relative amounts are transferred like a fingerprint.”