Active cocaine use results in sequestration of parent drug in hair. In addition, hair has unique physicochemical properties that permit absorption of cocaine from the environment. When hair is tested for evidence of cocaine, it is important to consider whether the positive test resulted from active drug use or environmental contamination. In a series of laboratory experiments, it was found that exposure of 'cut' hair to cocaine vapor ('crack' smoke) and to aqueous solutions of cocaine hydrochloride resulted in significant contamination of hair samples. Similar results were obtained with two subjects who were exposed to cocaine vapor in an unventilated room. The amount of contamination adsorbed by hair depended upon both time and extent of exposure. Washing the hair samples with methanol removed > 70% of the cocaine contaminant after cocaine vapor exposure, but was less effective (
oxford atpl cbt crack cocaine
Download File: https://tinourl.com/2vAbI5
South American 'crack' cocaine, produced directly from coca leaf, can be distinguished from US domestically produced crack on the basis of occluded solvent profiles. In addition, analysis of domestically produced crack indicates the solvents that were used for cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) processing in South America. Samples of cocaine base (N=3) from South America and cocaine from the USA (N=157 base, N=88 HCl) were analyzed by headspace-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) to determine their solvent profiles. Each cocaine HCl sample was then converted to crack cocaine using the traditional crack production method and re-examined by HS-GC-MS. The resulting occluded solvent profiles were then compared to their original HCl solvent profiles. Analysis of the corresponding crack samples confirmed the same primary processing solvents found in the original HCl samples, but at reduced levels. Domestically seized crack samples also contained reduced levels of base-to-HCl conversion solvents. In contrast, analysis of South American crack samples confirmed the presence of low to high boiling hydrocarbons and no base-to-HCl conversion solvents. The presented study showed analysis of crack cocaine samples provides data on which processing solvents were originally utilized in the production of cocaine HCl in South America, prior to conversion to crack cocaine. Determination of processing solvents provides valuable information to the counter-drug intelligence community and assists the law enforcement community in determining cocaine distribution and trafficking routes throughout the world. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Identification of cocaine and subsequent quantification immediately after seizure are problems for the police in developing countries such as Brazil. This work proposes a comparison between the Raman and FT-IR techniques as methods to identify cocaine, the adulterants used to increase volume, and possible degradation products in samples seized by the police. Near-infrared Raman spectra (785 nm excitation, 10 sec exposure time) and FT-IR-ATR spectra were obtained from different samples of street cocaine and some substances commonly used as adulterants. Freebase powder, hydrochloride powder, and crack rock can be distinguished by both Raman and FT-IR spectroscopies, revealing differences in their chemical structure. Most of the samples showed characteristic peaks of degradation products such as benzoylecgonine and benzoic acid, and some presented evidence of adulteration with aluminum sulfate and sodium carbonate. Raman spectroscopy is better than FT-IR for identifying benzoic acid and inorganic adulterants in cocaine. 2014 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
Six healthy male volunteers were exposed to the vapor of 100 and 200 mg freebase cocaine heated to a temperature of 200 degrees C in an unventilated room (12,600-L volume) for a period of 1 h. No pharmacological effects were detected as a result of the exposure. Blood specimens collected immediately following exposure were negative for cocaine and metabolites. Urine specimens analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry contained peak concentrations of benzoylecgonine that ranged from 22 to 123 ng/mL. The peak excretion time for benzoylecgonine following passive exposure was approximately 5 h. The amount of cocaine inhaled by the subjects during passive exposure was estimated from room air measurements of cocaine to be approximately 0.25 mg. The total amount of cocaine (cocaine plus metabolites) excreted in urine by the six subjects ranged from 0.04 to 0.21 mg. For comparison, the six subjects also received an intravenous injection of 1 mg cocaine hydrochloride. Four of six subjects screened positive (300-ng/mL cutoff concentration) following the injection, indicating that the minimum amount of cocaine in these subjects necessary to produce positive results was approximately 1 mg. A second passive inhalation study was undertaken in which specimens were collected from research staff who assisted in a series of experimental studies with "crack" (freebase cocaine) smokers. The research staff remained in close vicinity while the crack smokers smoked three doses of freebase cocaine (12.5, 25, and 50 mg) over a period of 4 h. As a result, staff members were passively exposed to sidestream smoke from crack pipes and to breath exhalation from the crack smokers. Urine specimens from the staff members contained a maximum of 6 ng/mL benzoylecgonine. Only traces (less than 1 ng/mL) of cocaine were detected in any specimen. Overall, these studies demonstrated that individuals exposed to cocaine smoke under naturalistic or artificial conditions absorbed small amounts of
A method using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) for the isolation of cocaine/crack biomarkers in meconium samples, followed by solid phase extraction (SPE) and the simultaneous quantification by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was developed and validated. Initially, meconium samples were submitted to an ASE procedure, which was followed by SPE with Bond Elut Certify I cartridges. The analytes were derivatizated with PFP/PFPA and analyzed by GC-MS. The limits of detection (LOD) were between 11 and 17ng/g for all analytes. The limits of quantification (LOQ) were 30ng/g for anhydroecgonine methyl ester, and 20ng/g for cocaine, benzoylecgonine, ecgonine methyl ester and cocaethylene. Linearity ranged from the LOQ to 1500ng/g for all analytes, with a coefficients of determination greater than 0.991, except for m-hydroxybenzoylecgonine, which was only qualitatively detected. Precision and accuracy were evaluated at three concentration levels. For all analytes, inter-assay precision ranged from 3.2 to 18.1%, and intra-assay precision did not exceed 12.7%. The accuracy results were between 84.5 and 114.2% and the average recovery ranged from 17 to 84%. The method was applied to 342 meconium samples randomly collected in the University Hospital-University of São Paulo (HU-USP), Brazil. Cocaine biomarkers were detected in 19 samples, which represent 5.6% of exposure prevalence. Significantly lower birth weight, length and head circumference were found for the exposed newborns compared with the non-exposed group. This is the first report in which ASE was used as a sample preparation technique to extract cocaine biomarkers from a complex biological matrix such as meconium samples. The advantages of the developed method are the smaller demand for organic solvents and the minor sample handling, which allows a faster and accurate procedure, appropriate to confirm fetal exposure to cocaine/crack. Copyright 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Studying markets for illegal drugs is important, but difficult. Data usually come from a selected subset of consumers, such as arrestees, treatment clients, or household survey respondents. There are rarely opportunities to study how such groups may differ from other market participants or how much of total consumption they represent. This paper uses respondent-driven sampling (RDS) of drug users in a mid-sized American city to estimate the shares of cocaine (powder and crack) users and expenditures that are attributable to different combinations of these groups. We find that those arrested in the last year accounted for 34% of past-month cocaine users and 40% of past-week cocaine spending in the RDS sample. Augmenting past-year arrestees with those who received treatment in the past year increases these values to 44% (users) and 55% (spending). Our results suggest that estimates based only on people who were arrested and/or treated in the past year would have to be inflated by 100-200% to capture the market totals. Adding those who own or rent their place of residence increased coverage in this study to 76% (users) and 81% (spending), suggesting that in theory the inflation factor could be reduced to 23-32% by supplementing data on arrestees and treatment populations with household data, although in practice rates of under-reporting by survey respondents may make coverage (sampling frame) a secondary concern for household surveys. Copyright 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Crack cocaine (free-base cocaine) smokers belong to a subgroup of marginalized drug users exposed to severe health risks and great social harm. Detection of the urinary, pyrolytic biomarker methylecgonidine (MED) and its metabolite ecgonidine (ED) secures an unambiguous confirmation of crack cocaine smoking. Although prevalence studies of cocaine based upon self-reporting may not be accurate, laboratory analysis is seldom used for neither diagnostic purpose nor early identification of crack cocaine smoking, which is far more severe than snorting cocaine. A new analytical method was validated for MED, ED and other relevant cocaine metabolites using automated liquid handling and column switching coupled to liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. Limit of quantification was 30 ng/mL for ED and MED. This method was applied in a laboratory study of urine samples (n = 110) from cocaine users in Denmark subjected to routine drugs-of-abuse testing. Crack cocaine smoking was confirmed by the presence of MED and/or ED. Eighty-four samples (76.4%) were found positive for crack cocaine smoking in this group of problematic cocaine users. MED was only detected in 5.9% of the positive samples. The study shows a prevalence 3-fold higher to that recently suggested by European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. We therefore advocate that the urinary biomarkers MED and ED are included in routine testing methods for clinical toxicology. This may lead to an earlier identification of crack cocaine smoking and possibly prevent a more severe drug use. The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com. 2ff7e9595c
Comentários