earticle

영어

New psychoactive substances(NPS) are a novel synthetic substance designed for abuse while evading the law. In terms of synthetic cannabinoids, the most common form found in Korea is a group of JWH-018 and its variations. Since the first appearance of synthetic cannabinoids in 2009, their use has been increasing in Korea. In this study, we report on the trend of NPS in Korea from 2009 to present. In summary, the number of detected cases of NPS is gradually increased with time, from 8 cases in 2009 to 143 cases in 2016. Though a sudden decrease was found to 58 cases in 2018, they increased by 317 % in the following year. Many NPS-related research papers have been published since 2012, and recently we developed a simultaneous detection method for total 59 synthetic cannabinoids in human hair using LC-MS/MS. In the case studies based on the analytical results of drug abusers’ hair, UR-144 was frequently abused in 2014, while AB-CHMINACA was the most abused drug during 2016∼2017. From 2014 to present, most frequently detected synthetic cannabinoids were AB-CHMINACA, 43 cases in total, followed by 5F-ADB(25 cases), JWH-210(20 cases), UR-144(11 cases) and 5F-MDMB-PICA (8 cases) in order. The diversity of synthetic cannabinoids and the speed of their emergence are noticeable differences compared to those of traditional drugs. Particularly, three new types of synthetic cannabinoids(5F-MDMB-PICA, AMB-FUBINACA and 4F-MDMB-BUTINACA) were introduced in Korea in 2020, and more than two types of these drugs were abused in a mixed form.