Rapid characterization of cocaine in illicit drug samples by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy.

Seized samples of illegally produced cocaine have a very large variability in composition; a fact that may result in a challenge to their analysis. We demonstrate here a simple and fast method to detect the presence of cocaine in both hydrochloride and free-base forms in illicit drug samples by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This is achieved by combining the commonly used 1D spectra and diffusion-ordered spectroscopy and introducing the 2D maximum-quantum NMR approach to forensic analysis.