Description

Synthetic cannabinoids like 4F-ADB are usually added to plant material by soaking or spraying, but in some cases their solid form (crystalline powder) was added to plant material, leading to an inhomogeneous mixture. They are sold as ‘Spice Gold’, ‘Spice Silver’, ‘Spice Diamond’, ‘K2’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Black Mamba’, ‘Bombay Blue’, ‘Blaze’, ‘Genie’, ‘Zohai’, ‘JWH -018, -073, -250’, ’Kronic’, ‘Yucatan Fire’, ‘Skunk’, ‘Moon Rocks’, ‘Mr. Smiley U-48800 They are usually smoked, but oral use has also been reported.

Synthetic cannabinoids act as Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists (SCRA). These substances bear structural features that allow binding to one of the known cannabinoid receptors, and produce effects similar to those of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the only known psychoactive component in cannabis. Synthetic Cannabinoids are often laced onto herbal products.

Other structurally dissimilar varieties of synthetic cannabinoids unrelated to THC have also emerged on the market. These include aminoalkylindoles, such as naphthoylindoles (e.g. JWH-018), phenylacetylindoles (e.g. JWH-250), and benzoylindoles (e.g. AM-2233) [2]. JWH-018, arguably the most widely known synthetic cannabinoid, belongs to the group of aminoalkylindoles and is considered to be three times as potent as THC. Aminoalkylindoles are by far the most prevalent compounds found in herbal products laced with synthetic cannabinoids. This is due to the fact that syntheses of aminoalkylind