I-Science: NIDA's Look into Old Designer Drugs, New Cultural Phenomenon

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Glen Hanson: This phenomenon of designer drugs out in the community has really created a major problem for us. Problem in terms of detection, in terms of understanding the pharmacology of these compounds, and in terms of how society is able to deal with it.  So, it is a way for the science to work together with community and law enforcement to define these things to try to control them and limit the type of damage that they can do. And there is also a research opportunity because many of these compounds have been out there for a while and haven’t paid much attention to them and now we are coming back and taking a look and find out that there are some unique properties that could actually be interesting as far as doing our some of our research in the future. So on one hand it is a curse and it’s a problem, and on the other hand it’s also an opportunity for research to look in new areas and who knows what the outcome? It could be therapeutic, a better understanding of basic physiology and how things work particularly how it relates to substance abuse and drug addiction.

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