[zkms]

Yeah, "designer drugs" -- the products of someone trying to make a drug that works on the same systems but is different enough in structure from anything on a Controlled Substances list are bad news. The problem lies in the fact that many drugs with long histories of human use (opium, marijuana) have long histories of human use, and so they've been tested extensively and are known not to produce horrid adverse effects. They might not be the global maximum of safety and efficacy, but they sure are likely to be close to it. Trying to replicate a compound that has been tested for efficacy and safety for decades to millenia (and not being allowed to just change tiny things on the molecule) is not something that is likely to give results close to the original. Other examples of that include synthetic cannabinoids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabinoids#Toxicit...), which are a lot more dangerous than actual marijuana. i'm not claiming marijuana is harmless, just, like, synthetic cannabinoids really are just that bad.

Ironically, the obverse task -- trying to create a molecule that acts on similar neurobiological targets as an illegal drug but doesnt get people "high" or look like a molecule from an illegal drug -- can be similarly fraught. The flagrant example is BIA 10-2474, an experimental drug meant to target the endocannabinoid system in a roundabout way: not by directly activating receptors, but by inhibiting an enzyme that degrades the endogenous chemicals that activate endocannabinoid receptors, which would, ideally, have similar effects as directly activating those receptors. A trial of it killed one person and irreversibly and severely neurologically damaged a few others. This isn't to claim that FAAH inhibition is doomed to failure, just that safely messing around with sublimely complex neurochemistry is difficult; adding constraints like "must not make people feel high" or "must not look like Prohibited Molecules" makes it needlessly harder.