A new generation of synthetic intoxicants poses a serious cancer risk, researchers have warned.
Synthetic cannabinoids use chemicals similar to cannabis – but "are likely" to trigger damage to human DNA, according to the Austrian researchers.
The substances are being marketed as legal highs and appearing in incense mixtures.
Researchers in Vienna have tested them on human cells in laboratory conditions.
Over a seven-year period, the European Union counted some 240 psychoactive substances disguised as incense blends, bath salts or plant fertilisers. About 140 contained synthetic cannibinoids.
Researcher Siegfried Knasmüller, from the Institute for Cancer Research at the MedUni Vienna, said yesterday: "The substances are directly active, in other words they are not activated via enzymes that metabolise foreign substances.
"The respiratory organs and the digestive tract especially are subjected to increased concentrations of these drugs. Our investigations on human cell lines in the laboratory have shown that synthetic cannabinoids, in the high concentrations found in cells in the oral cavity or in the lungs, for example, are likely to trigger damage to the DNA that may have significant consequences for the consumers of such substances.
"They damage chromosomes, and this is directly associated with cancer."
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