Murdered while under the influence of 3-MeO-PCP

Abstract

The abuse of new psychoactive substances (NPS) has been dramatically increasing all around the world since the late 2000s. The availability of hundreds of NPS in the past decade is challenging for both public health and global drug policies. A 39-year-old woman, known as a multidrug addict, was murdered by her partner by ligature strangulation. A comprehensive toxicological screening by gas chromatography and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry revealed the simultaneous presence of ethanol (1.37 g/L), diazepam (157 ng/mL) and nordiazepam (204 ng/mL), cocaine (25 ng/mL) and benzoylecgonine (544 ng/mL), and (3-methoxy-(1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine) or 3-MeO-PCP, a dissociative hallucinogen anesthetic drug. Concentrations of 3-MeO-PCP were 63, 64, and 94 ng/mL in femoral blood, bile, and urine, respectively. Hair tested also positive for 3-MeO-PCP on 3 × 2-cm segments at 731, 893, and 846 pg/mg, indicating long-term abuse of the drug. This seems to be the first ever reported hair concentrations. Major impairment of the victim, including visual hallucinations and alteration of behavior, was attributed to the mixture of all the drugs, with a major contribution of 3-MeO-PCP. The toxicological findings were compared to the few reports available in the medical literature.

Analytical Characterization of 3-MeO-PCP and 3-MMC in Seized Products and Biosamples: The Role of LC-HRAM-Orbitrap-MS and Solid Deposition GC-FTIR

“…MMC and MeO-PCP analogs may show quite similar chromatographic and, especially, mass spectrometric behaviors, which may hinder their full characterization in the case of unavailability of reference standards for all isomers, and/or their metabolites in case of biosample analysis. These analytical challenges have been addressed by several authors by means of different analytical approaches, for the discrimination of 2-MMC, 3-MMC, and 4-MMC ( Power et al, 2011 ; Power et al, 2012 ; Jamey et al, 2016 ; Maas et al, 2017 ; Zuba and Adamowicz, 2017 ; Nowak et al, 2018 ; Kranenburg et al, 2019 ; Kranenburg et al, 2020a ; Kranenburg et al, 2020b ) and 3-MeO-PCP and 4-MeO-PCP ( Bäckberg et al, 2015a ; Bakota et al, 2016 ; Bertol et al, 2017 ; Johansson et al, 2017 ; Mitchell-Mata et al, 2017 ; Zidkova et al, 2017 ; Ameline et al, 2019b ; Berar et al, 2019 ; de Jong et al, 2019 ; Kintz et al, 2019 ). However, such discriminative analyses were in most cases carried out with all the necessary reference standards available.…”

“…4-MeO-PCP is less potent than 3-MeO-PCP, while 2-MeO-PCP is very weak ( Kalir, 1981 ; Wallach and Brandt, 2018 ), probably explaining why the latter is almost absent from the recreational market. Instead, the relatively large worldwide diffusion of the most potent 3-MeO-PCP represents the cause of many non-fatal and fatal intoxication cases ( Stevenson and Tuddenham, 2014 ; Bäckberg et al, 2015a ; Bakota et al, 2016 ; Bertol et al, 2017 ; Johansson et al, 2017 ; Mitchell-Mata et al, 2017 ; Zidkova et al, 2017 ; Ameline et al, 2019b ; Ameline et al, 2019c ; Berar et al, 2019 ; de Jong et al, 2019 ; Grossenbacher et al, 2019 ; Kintz et al, 2019 ).…”

Testing for midazolam and oxycodone in blood after formalin‐embalmment: About a complex medico‐legal case

“…Chromatography was achieved using a Waters Acquity HSS C18 column (150 x 2.1 mm x 1.8 μm) maintained at 50°C in a thermostatically controlled oven, according to previous applications . A gradient elution was performed using formate buffer adjusted to pH 3 (mobile phase A) and 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile (mobile phase B).…”

Interpol review of toxicology 2016–2019

“… 3-MeO-PCP conc. in blood (ng/mL) Other toxicological findings 29/M [ 311 ] 139 ± 41 Diphenhydramine, amphetamine 21/M [ 312 ] 3200 Ethanol, bupropion, delorazepam, mitragynine, paroxetine 58/M [ 312 ] 630 methamphetamine 39/F∗ [ 313 ] 63 Alcohol, diazepam, nordiazepam, cocaine # 27/M [ 314 ] 380 – 21/M∗∗ [ 314 ] 180 Burprenorphine and metabolite, 5-MeO-MiPT 27/M [ 314 ] 230 Methadone, diazepam # , pregabalin, MA, buprenorphine # 29/M∗∗ [ 314 ] 120 Nordiazepam, pregabalin, flubromazolam, AB-FUBINACA, THJ-018, buprenorphine # , methylphenidate # 32/M [ 314 ] 60 Oxycodone, amphetamine, flubromazolam, MT-45, 4-MeO-PCP, THJ-018, THC 27/M [ 314 ] 50 Tramadol, alprazolam, fentanyl, amphetamine 20/F [ 314 ] 80 Tramadol # Remarks: ∗ for Homicide case; ∗∗ for Suicidal case; # for metabolite also reported. …”