Author: Guy Jones

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Which reagent test kit is suitable for testing DMT?

The MDMA & Psychedelics Multipack is the best option for testing DMT. It contains the ehrlich reagent which is a “binary test” for the presence of compounds in the DMT family (technical term: indole-containing substances). If it stays clear then there is no DMT present in the sample.

If the ehrlich reagent goes purple then you can corroborate with other tests as follows:

Reagent TestReaction with pure DMT
EhrlichPurple
MarquisOrange > Brown
MeckeYellow > V. Dark Green
FroehdeNo change

If the froehde reagent changes colour then you know that other compounds are present.

One of the challenges with drugs from plant origins is that plants contain many compounds and these are extracted by the same process. This makes it very hard to tell if any “other chemical” is from the plant or if it has been added by the person making or selling the compound. We recommend that the Best Practice is to discard any drug which has any reaction not compatible with the pure form of the expected substance.

The hofmann reagent can also be used for testing DMT and should only go yellow for pure DMT. Because the hofmann reagent is very sensitive to similar compounds from plants, it can be impractical for testing plant-derived DMT where there are usually strong green (from 5-MeO-DMT) and orange (from gramine) tones also present.

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Pill Report: Philipp Plein (qp Skull) ecstasy pill [Alert]

The notorious hexagonal Philipp Plein pill, aka PP Skull or QP Skull has been around since July 2017 where it was first detected in Austria by Checkit! and was a gold pill with 225mg of MDMA. It’s 2019 now and that is no longer reality, as a recent detection in Austria has found the Philipp Plein skull tablets containing 4-FMA, a completely different drug.

Although the colour of this batch is pink, the colour comes from a dye and doesn’t indicate what’s in the tablet. Many different colours of this pill have been produced, and it was one of the most common pills in europe in 2018.

Image credit: https://Checkit.wien April 2019 Alerts

It’s easy to tell if a tablet contains 4-FMA instead of MDMA because the marquis and froehde reagent give no colour change, compared to the (extremely strong) purple/black colour they give with MDMA. The test takes about 60 seconds for each reagent and allows people to test for many different drugs in their own home.

As is so often the case with ecstasy tablets, the first batch isn’t in circulation for long, as the first producer runs out and other producers figure out how to copy the design so that they can make their own tablets for less money, allowing them to make more profit.

In many cases over the last few years, this re-pressing of tablets has just meant putting less MDMA into the tablets but this is an unregulated market and that means some of the most unscrupulous sellers may choose to put a different drug altogether, which means that people may grossly misjudge the risks that they are being exposed to.

4-FMA is a much longer-lasting stimulant but is often described as having extremely disappointing effects because it does not produce the empathy and energy that MDMA produces, even at high doses. What it does do though, is prevent sleep for 8+ hours, which is longer than the 4-6 hours of MDMA and could cause problems for people who need to sleep for their health after a weekend of partying which might be very taxing on the body.

The two tablets analysed contain 45 and 55mg of 4-FMA respectively, which is a fairly low dose of 4-FMA since it is more often taken around 100mg. It does take a long time to kick in, often around an hour, so if someone does take this tablet then they should be careful not to take more because they think “it’s not working”, especially since a second tablet could push the dose to be excessive for their personal body characteristics.

Reagent Tests UK makes tests for common drugs to help reduce the risks associated with taking them. Even though drug use is never safe, we can neuter some of the worst risks by testing and using other harm reduction techniques. You can get a test for MDMA here.

One of the other most important techniques is education about the substance being taken. Understanding the risks can have a huge impact on the ability to control them. Even pure MDMA has plenty of risks, but there are lots of resources online which go into depth about these. Some good resources for drugs information can be found here:

Thank you also to www.ecstasydata.org for preparing the photos. EcstasyData offer lab testing of tablets and powders which are sent in the post.

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UPS ecstasy pills with high doses of dangerous “alpha-PVP” hospitalise three people

White UPS ecstasy pills containing alpha-PVP from Manchester, UK

The pills are described as “badly made”. Read the history below for more information about why this might be. It is also possible that they are well made but have been exposed to moisture, which causes them to be crumble. Although this batch is known to be dangerous, it does not mean that batches which do not look like this will be less dangerous. You can determine if a pill contains a different drug instead of MDMA using Reagent Tests. It takes about 2 minutes and does not need special equipment. Each of the kits can be used for up to 40 tests.

Alpha-PVP is a long-lasting cathinone. It initially has pleasurable effects which lead people to think it is MDMA but these wear off quickly, causing people to take more. As more is taken, the anxious side effects build up. Each dose increases the time which a person will be unable to sleep for by about 6 hours. This is a severe problem as dosing through a whole party can prevent sleep for several days.

During this time the person will develop symptoms of severe sleep deprivation such as horrible anxiety, paranoia and eventually temporary psychosis. If you are suffering these effects then it is important to get sleep. See a doctor and show them this Reagent Tests UK blog, or this information from The Loop.

These pills contain 7-8x the normal dose of alpha-PVP which will massively increase the risks. As a stimulant, doses like this could cause a risk of heart complications as well as the other side effects. Carry on reading the blog post for more information about UPS pills and alpha PVP.

The history of UPS ecstasy tablets

UPS ecstasy tablets have been popular for a long time. They were among the first very high strength tablets to emerge in the 2010s and quickly obtained a reputation as being well made tablets with a large amount of MDMA in them. MDMA is the active ingredient that is supposed to be in all ecstasy tablets and people who use ecstasy pills will be seeking out those which contain only MDMA.

The market for MDMA tablets is, of course, completely unregulated and uncontrolled and there is nothing to stop sellers from being dishonest. Counterfeit tablets quickly begin to appear after a tablet gains a good reputation as less scrupulous manufacturers try to use the popularity to sell their own pills which might be weaker, may contain no MDMA or may even contain a completely different and potentially much more dangerous drug.

Compounding this issue is the ease with which pressing equipment for pills can be obtained. Ten minutes searching online easily reveals sellers of “tablet dies”, the moulds use to press tablet material into a tablet, for around £50.

So it doesn’t take much time or money for a pill to be cloned, and once it’s cloned the colour, shape and logo of an ecstasy tablet from someone else’s pill report tell us nothing about what’s in it. It’s impossible to tell from visual appearance if the pill is from a different batch, maybe even from a different manufacturer.

UPS pills are no different. The first test result on Ecstasydata.org is from May 2015. Within 8 months there is a clone which contains a mixture of drugs including caffeine and methamphetamine (“crystal meth”). Fast forward to 2019 and the original batch of UPS pills are long gone. Even half sensible manufacturers will not make UPS pills because they know that the reputation has been ruined by pill reports of bad UPS pills. The only manufacturers remaining are the most amateur available, looking to make some quick cash as easily as possible.

Hospitalisation

In the third week of January 2019 three teenage boys were taken to hospital in Manchester, UK with severe symptoms, one of which was put into an induced coma due to the risk. They had all taken “UPS” ecstasy tablets, thinking that they would contain MDMA. After police were able to submit the tablets for testing, they turned out to contain a completely different drug called “alpha-PVP”.

The lab was not able to determine the exact amount in the tablets but it is thought to be 7-8x a typical dose, which is a huge amount. Even drinking 7-8 cups of coffee in one go would cause problems, especially for a teenager.

What is Alpha PVP?

Alpha PVP is a stimulant from the cathinone family. While this family includes mephedrone, it is a very distant relative of mephedrone itself and has much higher risks attached. Alpha-PVP has been called “flakka” and “gravel” by media in the US but there is no evidence to suggest that people using the drug call it this.

Stimulants activate the body’s reward system to create a sense of wellbeing and make people talkative, and alter how the body manages alertness and rest, causing people to feel energetic and prevent sleep. They also significantly increase blood pressure, heart rate and cause sweating. In high doses, side effects become much more pronounced and the body finds it harder to excrete the drug out through its normal mechanisms. This is especially true with cathinones like alpha-PVP. Although the pleasurable effects last for about 2 hours, the drug lingers in fatty tissue for much longer. The more doses that are taken, the longer that the drug has a chance to build up and therefore the longer it is released back into the blood for, after people want the effects to stop.

People are tricked by the initial pleasurable effects of alpha-PVP into thinking they have just got “weak MDMA”. Not wanting the party to stop (and unknowingly compelled by the action of the drug on their reward system) they take some more. This cycle continues until the party is over, by which time the drug has been building up in the body for hours.

This becomes a huge problem as the drug prevents sleep, a vital recovery process for the body. Even without drugs, sleep deprivation can cause severe paranoia and temporary psychosis, but with a stimulant drug on board this happens MUCH faster. Coupled with the horrible comedown that cathinones cause, this can lead to intensely distressing and even very dangerous behaviour.

You can see the original warning issued by the Manchester Early Warning System here: UPS ecstasy pill alpha-pvp drug warning 2019

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How to detect pentylone and N-ethylpentylone sold as MDMA/ecstasy pills

Edit: Eutylone seems more common since 2020. It has the same test results and the same risks as pentylone and N-ethyl-pentylone.

N-ethyl-pentylone (aka BK-EBDP or Ephylone) has caused problems before where it has been sold as MDMA due to the identical visual appearance but this year has seen an increase in the number of cases detected and more alerts have been issued.

The Loop has now detected two batches of pills in the UK containing these closely related drugs, as well as a number of different batches of crystals.

The mis-selling of pentylone and its analogues is particularly insidious because the effects are initially quite similar to MDMA itself, but the empathogenic effects are not so pronounced and the euphoria fades more quickly. This leads people to redose, but redosing seems to disproportionately extend the time to clear the body and this makes sleep very difficult or impossible for up to 72 hours without further medication. This stimulated sleep deprivation is horrible at best, and multiple cases of temporary psychosis have been recorded.

N-ethylpentylone can be detected at home using reagent tests, it is very easy to tell apart from MDMA because instead of going black it goes yellow/green, orange and yellow with the reagents in the MDMA testing multipack. Occasionally, MDMA is mixed with another drug so it is recommended to visually separate different looking crystals in the batch and test them separately. You can see the test results at the end of this post, they are:

Type of reagent testTest result for pentylone
Marquis ReagentYellow
Froehde ReagentYellow>Green
Mecke ReagentOrange

Effects of pentylone and N-ethylpentylone:

  • Long time to feel effects
  • Not enjoyable after 2 hours
  • Unable to sleep for 1-3 days
  • Heart races for 1-2 days
  • Higher chance of vomiting than MDMA

If you think that you have taken MDMA then The Loop has written a guide on what to do which you can see here. This very useful information tells you what to do if you can’t sleep after taking MDMA.

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Is it actually possible to have an ecstasy tablet which contains MDMA, cocaine and ketamine?

North & West Devon police have issued a warning about “Darth Vader” tablets today, saying that “it is a dangerous mix of MDMA, ketamine and cocaine”. This is very surprising as ecstasydata has never recorded a single incident of pills with this combination of drugs over the last 15 years. After being asked, N&W Devon police reveal that the pills have not been lab tested.

Credit: N&W Devon Police

In the absence of any real knowledge, can we critically analyse the speculation about the contents?

MDMA is commonly distributed in tablets for a variety of reasons, namely the increased ease of dosing and ability for “brand recognition” to supposedly make it easier to identify fake pills with more dangerous contents. Unfortunately, with pill production equipment readily purchasable on Amazon, this is not an effective strategy. So the suggestion that there could be MDMA in these tablets is certainly plausible.

Cocaine however, is almost never seen in pills, and for very good reason. Cocaine contains two “ester” bonds in the molecule, which are very vulnerable to being broken down by water and acids. Since the stomach is a strongly acidic environment, when cocaine is eaten it starts being broken down immediately, and then gets passed to the liver which destroys more. This means the dose of cocaine required when taking it orally is much higher. In order to include a meaningful amount of cocaine in an ecstasy tablet would therefore massively increase the price of the tablet. As well as this, cocaine is a strong local anaesthetic (causes numbness) so any would-be user who put the pill into their mouth would immediately realise something unusual was afoot when their tongue started to go numb.

Ketamine is another drug which is almost never taken orally because it too is fragile, and easily dismantled by the liver. Since all blood from the stomach passes through the liver before going to the brain, this means that a lot is destroyed before it can affect the body. Coupled with the fact that absorption from the gut is much slower than the nose, this means a very high dose is needed to reach the same concentration in the brain. The outcome of this is that adding a meaningful amount of ketamine to a tablet would massively increase the size of the tablet.

Trying to add a meaningful amount of all three of these drugs to a tablet would likely result in an enormous tablet which was incredibly expensive and immediately identifiable as abnormal, even by black market standards.

So, is it possible? Yes. But is it likely that a pill containing this combination of drugs has been detected for the second time in 12 years? No. I would argue that any authority claiming to have discovered something very unusual should apply extra scrutiny to that discovery before announcing it to the public, and possibly consult with experts beforehand, at the very least to apply a sense-check.

With all this said, it is refreshing to see a police force sharing as much information as they can (good photos and suspected contents) in the interest of public health – I suspect that the damaging cuts to public services over the last 8 years have impacted the ability of the police to access experts at short notice within their budgets. Perhaps by waiting a few days for a test result confirmation could have meant more people falling victim to these tablets. Really what we should be calling for is the central government to provide funding for testing facilities that are more easily accessible.

Until then, home users can use simple reagent tests to alert themselves to cases where a different drug has been sold in place of the one they were expecting.

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Ferarri tablets containing N-ethyl-pentylone detected in Spain

N-ethyl-pentylone (aka BK-EBDP or Ephylone) has caused problems before where it has been sold as MDMA due to the identical visual appearance but it’s rare in ecstasy pills.

It seems like a small pill producer has been duped by a bulk seller and bought a batch to make into pills which are currently being sold in the Balearic Islands and possibly elsewhere. The alert has been released by Energy Control who received the sample on 5th April 2018.

The tablets are white or yellow in the shape of a sheild with the Ferrari logo. The press quality appears quite poor and the images suggest the pills are not as hard as others on the market. It is likely that the manufacturer was trying to replicate other pills with this logo which have been sold at various times for the last six years.

The mis-selling of pentylone and its analogues is particularly insidious because the effects are initially quite similar to MDMA itself, but the empathogenic effects are not so pronounced and the euphoria fades more quickly. This leads people to redose, but redosing seems to disproportionately extend the time to clear the body and this makes sleep very difficult or impossible for up to 36 hours without further medication. This stimulated sleep deprivation is horrible at best, and in some cases can even lead to temporary psychosis.

N-ethyl-pentylone can be detected at home using reagent tests, it is very easy to tell apart from MDMA because instead of going black it goes yellow/green, orange and yellow with the reagents in the MDMA testing multipack.

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Tesla ecstasy pill with dangerous amount of 4-FA inside

Tesla MDMA tablets with no MDMA in them at all have been detected by Energy Control in Spain. They were bought on a Darknet Market. The tablets contain a different drug called 4-FA instead, and although the risks of 4-FA are similar to those of MDMA, the dosage in the pills (190mg) is very large compared to a normal dosage of 4-FA (120mg). Although this doesn’t seem like a huge increase, 4-FA has a lower safety margin in some people where it causes headaches and in some cases, has been linked to bleeding inside the brain. Reagent tests can alert you when a pill contains something instead of MDMA.

The pills in question are the orange tesla ecstasy tablets which are in the shape of a shield and have the Tesla logo on the front and a break-line on the back. There is at least one other orange tesla pill with exactly the same design, as well as a number of other tablets with almost identical designs, with some in different colours. Although they may be easy to tell apart if you have them side by side, trying to do it from photos is hard, and if a friend tells someone “the orange tesla pills I took contained MDMA” then of course, there is no chance of telling if you have the same ones.

4-FA is an abbreviation for 4-fluoroamphetamine, it is a stimulant drug derived from amphetamine by the simple addition of a fluorine atom. The effects are similar to MDMA and it is even preferred by some people due to the lighter effects. It causes an increase in energy and sociability as well as feelings of increased wellbeing. The sociable and euphoric effects are most prominent for the first 6 hours, but light stimulation can persist for 8 hours and some users may find it hard to sleep even when they feel like the effects have worn off. Like all drugs, 4-FA can cause negative side effects, and although the overheating issues are much less prominent than MDMA, they are still a key concern. Similar to other stimulants, 4-FA can cause significant anxiety and even panic attacks, especially during the onset and at high doses. Concerningly, a small number of people report severe headaches and it is thought that these people could be vulnerable to causing bleeding in the brain at high doses.

As with any pill, even if you think you know what’s in it you should always start with a small piece as a test dose, since even pure MDMA has significant risks and many pills contain very large doses.

Although we can’t tell if a pill contains 4-FA instead of MDMA by looking at it, they can be distinguished very easily using reagent tests. Reagent tests use a chemical mixture that react with drug molecules to create different types of dye molecule. The particular reagent used and the drug determine the colour of the dye, and so we can use the colour of the dye to see if the pill contains what we expect. If we get a colour we don’t expect then we know that the drug is not what we expect and therefore the risk is much higher than normal.

So we can see that by using the marquis reagent first, we can immediately raise the alarm if there is not a purple/black reaction. Using a second reagent helps give us confidence about the first result – three reagents is the recommended minimum. If the two compounds were mixed together (very thoroughly) then we would see a result as if we had mixed two powder paints – this is why it’s necessary to throw away a sample if the result is unusual. In many cases, substances are not mixed perfectly, so it’s even possible to see specks of one colour mixed in with the second colour. This is very useful if you have crystals that you can separate with tweezers.

You can get a variety of different reagent tests in our shop. Both the MDMA and cocaine testing kits will be able to tell you if an ecstasy tablet has had the MDMA replaced with something else.

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What’s the best kit to test drugs at home? MDMA, Ketamine, Cocaine and LSD are all easy.

Taking drugs is risky business – doctors have to spend so long in training because humans are complex and their reactions with drugs aren’t always easily predicted. Fortunately for doctors, prescription drugs are tightly regulated and in developed countries counterfeits are extremely rare – when you get 10 mg Ritalin tablets prescribed, you can be sure that each tablet will contain exactly 10.0 mg of Ritalin, and you’ll be able to get great advice from your doctor about the most effective way to take them.
Unfortunately the recreational market has no regulation whatsoever – the government leaves quality control in the hands of criminal organisations, and they’ll sell whatever makes the most money for them. Unfortunately this often means that drugs are impure and in some cases they can be something else altogether, without a trace of the advertised ingredient inside. Without the ability to rely on Trading Standards to fix this, we have to take matters into our own hands. But without the multi-million labs used by government organisations, how are we supposed to do any real testing?

It’s true that testing at home isn’t as good as testing in a lab, but if we can identify when a sample has been mis-sold, then we have the chance to avoid the problems associated with not knowing what we’re taking and remove a lot of the potential for harm. And luckily for us, while detailed chemical analysis can be challenging, simply telling whether a white powder contains Molecule A or Molecule B can actually be very easy.

Reagent tests work by changing colour roughly based on the “functional groups” or types of atom in a molecule. If Molecule A has an oxygen double bonded to a carbon and molecule B does not, then it will give a different colour. Bingo. We usually use three different “reagents” because some molecules have similar groups inside them, and each reagent is sensitive to different groups.

A reaction chart showing expected colours for different drugs.

The best part is that we don’t even need to know which bonds or groups a molecule has because we can just compare the colours we get to what we should expect for the compound we want. So at the end, we compare our three colours to a “reaction chart”, and if any of the colours don’t match then we know that we don’t have the molecule we expected.

Step 1 – Determine which drug you think you have.

If you don’t know what compound you’re expecting, you won’t know which colour change to expect.

Step 2 – Determine which reagents you need

Because different reagents work best with different drugs, it helps (but it is not essential) to match up the best reagent. At Reagent Tests UK we’ve named our multipacks according to which drug they are most suitable for, so this bit is done for you, but we’ll go into the science, in case you’re interested.

Testing MDMA

The MDMA testing multipack is a kit of three reagents selected for testing suspected MDMA. The marquis reagent is very popular and has a wide range of known reactions, even for uncommon adulterants. The froehde reagent has a great shelf life and picks up PMA being sold instead of MDMA, as well as helping to identify 2C-B in pills. Finally, the mecke reagent allows us to identify DXM, which has a similar reaction to MDMA with the marquis reagent but very different effects (black vs dark grey for marquis but black vs yellow for mecke).Reaction of the froehde reagent with MDMA

Testing Cocaine

Cocaine is a little trickier to test because the molecule itself doesn’t change colour with the marquis reagent. But that gives us a great opportunity to use the marquis reagent to see if amphetamine has been added, since amphetamine turns red to brown over about 30 seconds. Then we have the liebermann reagent which goes orange with cocaine to make sure there is actually some cocaine there. Finally the mandelin reagent allows us to identify some other cuts – it goes blue with vitamin C, orange/brown with benzocaine and greenish brown with levamisole as well as reacting with ibuprofen, paracetamol and procaine. These three reagents come together in the Cocaine Testing Kit

Testing Ketamine

Ketamine is a tricky one because it doesn’t react strongly with anything but we can use reagents to see if it’s been cut. The liebermann reagent goes light yellow with ketamine, but for methoxetamine (MXE) it goes orange-brown and for 3‑MeO‑PCP it goes a dark reddish brown. We can use the mandelin reagent to narrow things down as it goes green for 3‑MeO‑PCP and doesn’t change colour for methoxetamine. This can be very useful because most people don’t want their ketamine trip to last 6-8 hours from a tiny bump! That means we can use the Cocaine testing kit as a perfect way to check ketamine for dodgy goings-on.

Testing 2C-B

2C‑B is a psychedelic drug which is sometimes sold as pills or powder and has a very strong effect from a tiny amount. Lots of people enjoy this but you wouldn’t want to take an MDMA sized dose expecting the effects of MDMA and end up in a strong trip! 2C‑B turns green with the marquis reagent and yellow with the froehde reagent. If you’re considering blotter paper as the dosage form then the ehrlich reagent allows you to see if LSD might be present, as it goes purple for LSD but provides no colour change when testing 25I‑NBOMe, 2C‑B, DOB and the others in these series. We have our MDMA & psychedelics testing kit with the right reagents for these compounds.

Other compounds

The great thing about reagents is that they change colour with almost every drug, and we include a reaction colour chart and instructions with every order. So no matter what you were expecting, you can see if you’ve been sold something else instead. Don’t forget that even if your compound is what you expected you should still be careful, and very pure drugs can be a big risk if you start with a big dose expecting something less pure. So ideally weigh how much you’re taking, and if you’re not weighing something like MDMA then always #CrushDabWait.

If you’re using more than one of these on the list then don’t forget we also offer a combination kit to test drugs which contains our five most popular reagents.

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Synthetic cannabinoids (spice) sold as “magic” MDMA in Manchester, UK

Four people were hospitalised around Manchester on Saturday and a further four were hospitalised on Sunday, but a simple home reagent test could have prevented this for all of them. A batch of something they had bought as MDMA turned out to be purified crystals of synthetic cannabinoids (ADM-FUBICA), more commonly known as “spice” which comes heavily diluted onto plant leaves and is smoked. In this diluted form the effects are slightly like cannabis but with much higher risks. In their crystalline form, an amount the size of a match head can cause serious harm, as has been seen here.

The crystals had the same appearance as MDMA, but those who know their chemistry will be all too aware that many chemicals look incredibly similar and just a small impurity can change the appearance as much as switching two completely different compounds.

Appearance is not enough to identify MDMA crystals – you must test for substitutes if you want to be safe.

 

Because of the very high potency and risk of cannabinoids, taking a test dose alone is not enough to prevent harm – the amount that is a “test dose” for MDMA is an overdose amount for a cannabinoid. Therefore the only reliable way to distinguish compounds when a mix-up like this occurs is to test, either using a lab test or a home test such as the MDMA reagent test multipack. A home test like this takes about 4 minutes and gives a triple black reaction for MDMA, but a completely different colour reaction for ALL different kinds of cannabinoids and other possible substitutes (accidental or deliberate).

This makes testing for “spice” in MDMA incredibly easy, without the need to take a test dose that could be dangerous even if it’s small. Those in the area around Manchester buying “magic” as a drug or “pink champagne” are urged to be especially careful – try to use chemical names instead of slang names if you do decide to use MDMA, as this can increase confusion around what you are buying.

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UK government moves Ethylphenidate to Class B

In a move which will probably not surprise anyone, the UK government has formally stated that it will make ethylphenidate and its related compounds class B drugs. Ethylphenidate gained popularity both as a smart drug used by some students and as a recreational stimulant and is closely related to methylphenidate (ritalin) but has a reduced potency and shorter duration.

Ethylphenidate research chemical packaging
When ethylphenidate was sold legally it was commonly sold “for research purposes only” to avoid medicines legislation.

The ban follows the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), whose role is to perform detailed research into issues relating to drugs for the UK government so that it can make informed decisions about drug policy. The ACMD has done extensive research on ethylphenidate and its analogues, with multiple comments released about their prevalence and harms and on 10th April 2015 it recommended that ethylphenidate should be subject to a “Temporary Class Drug Order” (TCDO), which criminalises import and sale but not possession. The ACMD struggled to find detailed information about the group of compounds and remarked in June 2016 that the TCDO had been very successful in reducing use and that more time was needed for a good decision.

Their research continued until 10th March 2017, when they released their final report recommending the group of compounds should all become Class B substances. This was accompanied by one of their typically detailed research reports, again representing possibly the best collection of knowledge about the compounds that currently exists. The report includes detailed information about the drugs’ activity levels in the brain as well as details about the legal situations in other countries:

Ethylphenidate is controlled in China, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and Turkey. It is also classified under analogue scheduling in the US and Australia.

As well as ethylphenidate, a number of less popular analogues were also covered, perhaps the most interesting being 4-fluoromethylphenidate which was reported to be more potent and be much less compulsive.

The change in the law will come into force on the 31st May and cover the substances listed below. Class B offences could result in up to 5 years for possession or up to 14 years for supply.

 

Common Name Classification
N-Benzyl-ethylphenidate Illegal (UK Class B)
Ethylnaphthidate Illegal (UK Class B)
Ethylphenidate (EPH or EPD) Illegal (UK Class B)
Isopropylphenidate (IPP or IPPH) Illegal (UK Class B)
Methylmorphenate Illegal (UK Class B)
Methylnaphthidate (HDMP-28) Illegal (UK Class B)
Propylphenidate Illegal (UK Class B)
3,4-Dichloroethylphenidate Illegal (UK Class B)
3,4-Dichloromethylphenidate
(3,4-DCMP)		 Illegal (UK Class B)
4-Fluoroethylphenidate Illegal (UK Class B)
4-Fluoromethylphenidate Illegal (UK Class B)
4-Methylmethylphenidate (4-MMPH) Illegal (UK Class B)