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A designer drug is a structural or functional analog of a controlled substance that has been designed to mimic the pharmacological effects of the original drug, while avoiding classification as illegal and/or detection in standard drug tests. Designer drugs include psychoactive substances that have been designated by the European Union as new psychoactive substances as well as analogs of performance-enhancing drugs such as designer steroids. Some of these were originally synthesized by academic or industrial researchers in an effort to discover more potent derivatives with fewer side effects, and shorter duration and were later co-opted for recreational use. Other designer drugs were prepared for the first time in clandestine laboratories. Because the efficacy and safety of these substances have not been thoroughly evaluated in animal and human trials, the use of some of these drugs may result in unexpected side effects.
The development of designer drugs may be considered a subfield of drug design. The exploration of modifications to known active drugs—such as their structural analogues, stereoisomers, and derivatives—yields drugs that may differ significantly in effects from their "parent" drug. In some instances, designer drugs have similar effects to other known drugs, but have completely dissimilar chemical structures. Despite being a very broad term, applicable to almost every synthetic drug, it is often used to connote synthetic recreational drugs, sometimes even those which have not been designed at all.
In some jurisdictions, drugs that are highly similar in structure to a prohibited drug are illegal to trade regardless of that drug's legal status. In other jurisdictions, their trade is a legal grey area, making them grey market goods. Some jurisdictions may have analogue laws which ban drugs similar in chemical structure to other prohibited drugs, while some designer drugs may be prohibited irrespective of the legal status of structurally similar drugs; in both cases, their trade may take place on the black market.