Molecules
May 2024
Molecules
January 2024
Some South American countries have ancient traditions that may pose legal problems, such as the consumption of coca leaves, as this can provide positive results for cocaine use after the analysis of biological samples. For this reason, it is necessary to find specific markers that help differentiate legal from illegal consumption, such as tropacocaine, cinnamoylcocaine, and especially hygrine and cuscohygrine. In this work, two techniques for collecting biological samples are compared: the Quantisal Oral Fluid collection device and passive drooling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Chromatogr A
September 2023
A simple and highly efficient ultrasound assisted membrane-assisted solvent extraction (MASE) pre-treatment method for urine has been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of twenty-two drugs involved in drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSAs) by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. MASE was performed with 4.0 mL of urine (pH adjusted at 12), 400 μL of hexane as an organic solvent inside the polypropylene membrane, and ultrasonication (45 kHz, 120 W) for 10 min.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDriving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a very common behavior in our environment and a serious problem for public health. On the one hand, in 2016, 400,000 people died in the world in traffic accidents in which ethanol was involved. On the other hand, traffic accidents in which the use of drugs of abuse other than ethyl alcohol accounted for more than 160,000 deaths worldwide in 2017.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe global market for new psychoactive substances (NPSs) continues to expand, and the range of drugs available on the market has probably never been wider. Synthetic cannabinoids (SCRAs) constitute the largest family of NPSs, and they go unnoticed during illicit drug market control and during routine toxicological-forensic analysis. Membrane-assisted solvent extraction (MASE) has been a novelty proposed for the simultaneous extraction of SCRAs, and urine has been selected as a model forensic-clinical sample.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA simple sample pre-treatment method based on solid phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has been optimized and validated for the assessment of 15 residual solvents (2-propanol, 2-methylpentane, 3-methylpentane, acetone, ethyl acetate, benzene, hexane, methylcyclohexane, methylcyclopentane, m-xylene, propyl acetate, toluene, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, dichloromethane, and ethylbenzene) in seized illicit cocaine and heroin. DMSO and DMF as sample diluents were found to offer the best residual solvent transference to the head space for further adsorption onto the SPME fiber, and the developed method therefore showed high sensitivity and analytical recovery. Variables affecting SPME were fully evaluated by applying an experimental design approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA simple and fast sample pre-treatment method based on matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) for isolating cocaine, benzoylecgonine (BZE), codeine, morphine and 6-monoacethylmorphine (6-MAM) from human hair has been developed. The MSPD approach consisted of using alumina (1.80 g) as a dispersing agent and 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlcohol is the most frequently abused 'addictive substance' that causes serious social problems throughout the world; thus alcoholism is of particular interest in clinical and forensic medicine. Ethyl glucuronide (EtG) is a marker of recent alcohol consumption that detects alcohol use reliably over a definite time period. The present paper describes a new method for the determination of EtG in urine.
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