Chapter 21 - Review of Bath Salts on Illicit Drug Market

The so called “bath salts” are analogs of cathinone which can be synthesized from cathinone, a naturally occurring substance found in khat plant. Some people of Northern Africa as well as part of Middle-East chew khat plant because cathinone, a beta-keto amphetamine is structurally similar to amphetamine and also act as a sympathomimetic amine. Cathinone analogs (CA) are commonly known as “bath salts.” Although many derivatives of cathinone are found in illicit market, in the 1990s, methcathinone was the first reported CA, widely abused in the United States. While sporadic abuse of methcathinone is still reported, the use of other CA has become epidemic because these analogs are found within “legal high” products, mostly including methylone, ethylone, butylone, mephedrone, 4-methylethcathinone (4-MEC), and 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), among hundreds of derivatives available via the internet. Severe toxicity and even fatalities have been reported from abusing CA. Gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry as well as liquid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry can be used for analysis of these compounds in various biological matrices.