Determination of heroin and basic impurities for drug profiling by ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography

Applicability of ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐quadrupole‐time of flight mass spectrometry for cocaine profiling

“…[6,7] More than 70 types of cocaine-related alkaloids have been detected up to now. [25] Compared with the extensively used liquid phase separation techniques such as CE and LC with a DAD detector, UHPLC coupled with tandem mass spectrometry such as triple quadrupole (QqQ) MS and QTOF-MS provides significantly low limits of detection (LOD), resolution, and selectivity. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Some alkaloids come from coca leaf and are co-extracted with cocaine; others result from a hydrolysis, an oxidation or a thermo-degradation of cocaine during its producing.…”

“…[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The nine most abundant beings are ecgonine, ecgonine methyl ester, tropacocaine, cocaine, norcocaine, benzoylecgonine, cis-/transcinnamoylcocaine, and 3,4,5-trimethoxycocaine [3,4,8] ; other minor constituents such as ecgonidine methyl ester, 3,4,5-trimethoxycis-/trans-cinnamoylcocaine, cis-/trans-cinnamoylecgonine, also appear but in relatively low levels. UHPLC offers a higher speed and/or peak capacity, [25] A QqQ detector via multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) provides high selectivity and low LODs for the quantitation of targeted compounds [26] ; A QTOF detector enables accurate mass measurements with accuracies of <2 ppm, which dispel interpretation ambiguities. [20] The most commonly used assay methods for cocaine alkaloids include gas chromatography (GC) with flame ionization detector (FID), [4,13] electron capture detector (ECD), [21] nitrogen phosphorous detector (NPD), [9] and mass spectrometry (MS) [3,8] ; high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [22,23] and capillary electrophoresis (CE) [24] with a diode array detector (DAD) [22] or photodiode array detector (PDA).…”

Purity and adulterant analysis of some recent drug seizures in Italy

“…Emergency department personnel are often tasked with identifying and treating the effects of not only the primary substances, but also any other compounds added to mimic or antagonize the main drug effects. [3,4] Furthermore, since cocaine and morphine (precursor of heroin) are both extracted from natural products, some impurities and minor alkaloids can be present in the final product. [1,2] Powdery drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, are frequently adulterated predominantly to obtain more doses and to increase the drug dealer's profits, although a range of modifications of the drug effects may also be observed.…”

“…Furthermore, the consumed illicit drug may also simply be diluted with a range of substances, some of which could give rise to harmful synergic toxic actions. [3,4] The analysis of adulterants present in seized heroin and cocaine samples continues to be performed in several countries worldwide with the aim of tracing the routes of trafficking and adulteration for forensic purposes. [2] In the first case, inactive diluents are used, such as glucose, sodium carbonate, starch, and talc.…”

“…[1,2] Powdery drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, are frequently adulterated predominantly to obtain more doses and to increase the drug dealer's profits, although a range of modifications of the drug effects may also be observed. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In Italy, only limited and dated information is currently available on the presence of adulterants and on the purity of street heroin and cocaine samples, [10][11][12][13] which makes a systematic analysis desirable. In the second case, pharmacologically active substances have been identified, such as caffeine, paracetamol, methorphan in street heroin or caffeine, levamisole, lidocaine, and benzocaine in street cocaine.…”