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18280

Acute Toxicity of a Novel Class of Hallucinogen "Voodoo" (Clinical and Experimental Study)

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Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

Background: Voodoo is a newly emerged hallucinogenic substance in Egypt that target the youth aged 15-30 years causing many reported cases of acute toxicity. This made the Egyptian Ministry of Health in 2014 to list it in drug schedule 1 and warned traffickers and users that they are now under criminal penalties. Aim: this work was conducted to investigate the acute toxic effects of this hallucinogenic substance on human and experimental animals. Methods: this work included both clinical and experimental studies. The clinical study included 17 patients with acute Voodoo poisoning admitted to Poisoning Control Unit - Zagazig University Hospitals between July, 2015 and April, 2016. The experimental study included forty adult male albino rats were used for calculation of LD50 of Voodoo extract.  The extract was prepared using Gas chromatography/ Mass spectrophotometry (GC/MS) to be given intra peritoneally to experimental animals. Results: the patients' main complaints were hallucination, disorientation and extreme fear of death, a picture resemble acute cannabis poisoning but with negative urinary screening test for cannabis and other common addictive substances. GC/MS analysis revealed the chief substance in the extract (54.54%) was a chemical analogue of PB 22; a designer synthetic cannabinoids. LD 50 of the extract was estimated to be 1334 mg/Kg. Liver, kidneys and brain were the most affected studied organs. The liver showed severe congestion and macro vesicular steatosis with diffuse intracytoplasmic esinophlic bodies. Kidneys showed focal vacuolar degeneration of renal tubules, accentuation of glomerular basement membrane, hyallinosis of renal tubules with large areas of epithelial necrosis. Brain cells were markedly shrunken and vacuolated. Conclusion: it could be concluded that Voodoo proved to have many toxic effects on human and experimental animals and further studies are warranted to evaluate other toxic effects of this substance.

DOI

10.21608/ajfm.2017.18280

Keywords

Acute toxicity, Hallucinogen, LD 50, Synthetic cannabinoids, Voodoo extract

Authors

First Name

Marwa

Last Name

Abass

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Affiliation

Departments of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology ,Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Al sharqia, Egypt.

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First Name

Mohamad

Last Name

Hassan

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Affiliation

Departments of Histology and Cell Biology,Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Al sharqia, Egypt

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First Name

Manal

Last Name

Abd Elhaleem

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Departments of Pathology,Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Al sharqia, Egypt

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Orcid

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First Name

Hesham

Last Name

Abd Elaziz

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Departments of Phamacognosy of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Al sharqia, Egypt.

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Orcid

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First Name

Rehab

Last Name

Abd-Allah

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Departments of Phamacognosy of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Al sharqia, Egypt.

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Volume

28

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

3811

Issue Date

2017-01-01

Receive Date

2018-11-04

Publish Date

2017-01-01

Page Start

62

Page End

73

Print ISSN

1687-1030

Online ISSN

2636-3356

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https://ajfm.journals.ekb.eg/article_18280.html

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https://ajfm.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=18280

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6

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Original Article

Type Code

665

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Ain Shams Journal of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology

Publication Link

https://ajfm.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023