Editing Designer drug (section)

====1980s–early 1990s====
The modern use of the term designer drug was coined in the 1980s to refer to various synthetic [[opioid]] drugs, based mostly on the [[fentanyl]] molecule (such as [[Alphamethylfentanyl|α-methylfentanyl]]).<ref>{{cite conference | url = http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/future_synthetic/future_synthetic.shtml| vauthors = Cooper DA | title = Future Synthetic Drugs of Abuse | conference = Proceedings of the international symposium on the forensic aspects of controlled substances | date = March 1988 | page = 79 | publisher = Drug Enforcement Administration | location = McLean, Virginia }}</ref> The term gained widespread popularity when [[MDMA]] (ecstasy) experienced a popularity boom in the mid-1980s. When the term was coined in the 1980s, a wide range of [[narcotics]] were being sold as heroin on the black market. Many were based on fentanyl or [[meperidine]]. One, [[Desmethylprodine|MPPP]], was found in some cases to contain an impurity called [[MPTP]], which caused brain damage that could result in a syndrome identical to late stage [[Parkinson's disease]], from only a single dose.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Case of the Frozen Addicts: How the Solution of an Extraordinary Medical Mystery Spawned a Revolution in the Understanding and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease |year=1996 |volume=335 |issue=26 |pages=2002–2003 |vauthors=Fahn S |journal=The New England Journal of Medicine |doi=10.1056/NEJM199612263352618}}</ref> Other problems were highly potent fentanyl analogues that caused many accidental overdoses.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Henderson GL |title=Designer drugs: past history and future prospects |journal=J. Forensic Sci. |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=569–75 |year=1988 |pmid=3286815 |doi=10.1520/JFS11976J }}</ref>

Because the government was powerless to prosecute people for these drugs until after they had been marketed successfully, laws were passed to give the [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]] power to emergency schedule chemicals for a year, with an optional 6-month extension, while gathering evidence to justify permanent scheduling, as well as the analogue laws mentioned previously. Emergency-scheduling power was used for the first time for [[MDMA]]. In this case, the DEA scheduled MDMA as a Schedule I drug and retained this classification after review, even though their own judge ruled that MDMA should be classified Schedule III on the basis of its demonstrated uses in medicine.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.thedea.org/drughistory.html |title=TheDEA.org: The History of MDMA<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2008-03-27 |archive-date=2016-07-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160714221547/http://thedea.org/drughistory.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The emergency scheduling power has subsequently been used for a variety of other drugs including [[2C-B]], [[Alphamethyltryptamine|AMT]], and [[Benzylpiperazine|BZP]]. In 2004, a [[piperazine]] drug, [[Trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine|TFMPP]], became the first drug that had been emergency-scheduled to be denied permanent scheduling and revert to legal status.

The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw the re-emergence of [[methamphetamine]] in the United States as a widespread public health issue, leading to increasing controls on precursor chemicals in an attempt to cut down on domestic manufacture of the drug. This led to several alternative stimulant drugs emerging, the most notable ones being [[methcathinone]] and [[4-methylaminorex]], but, despite attracting enough attention from authorities to provoke legal scheduling of these compounds, their distribution was relatively limited in extent and methamphetamine continued to dominate the illicit synthetic stimulant market overall.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Jenkins P | title = Synthetic Panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs | publisher = NYU Press | date = 1999 | isbn = 978-0-8147-4244-0 }}</ref>