Forensic Chemistry of Substituted N-Benzylmethoxy (N-BOMe) Phenethylamines: Isomeric Designer Drugs Related to 25I-N-BOMe

• NCJ Number: 255667
• Date Published: January 2019
• Author(s): C. Randall Clark, Ph. D.
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Grant Report
• Award: Forensic Chemistry of Substituted N-Benzylmethoxy (N-BOMe) Phenethylamines: Isomeric Designer Drugs Related to 25I-N-BOMe

Annotation

This is the Final Summary Overview of a research project whose goal was to establish an analytical framework for the identification of individual N-benzylmethoxy-phenethylamine (NBOMe) isomers to the exclusion of all other possible isomeric and homologous forms of these compounds.

Abstract

The NBOMe compounds are another recent addition to the new/novel psychoactive substances (NPS) category of drugs of abuse. The development of the desired analytical specificity was achieved by 1) chemical synthesis of complete sets of regioisomeric reference compounds for selected NBOMe isomers; 2) generation of an analytical profile for each compound; 3) chromatographic studies to separate/resolve all regioisomeric substances having overlapping analytical profiles; and 4) design and validation of confirmation level analytical methods for identifying each compound to the exclusion of other regioisomeric forms. The results of this project include information and data sets that advance the forensic chemistry knowledge base and understanding of the relationship between NBOMe drug structure and specific analytical properties of these compounds. Three peer-reviewed scientific publications from this project are listed in the appendix. 17 figures