ABSTRACT
The ever increasing problem of drug abuse in the United States and North America during the 1980s and the beginning of the present decade (Hindmarsh & Opheim 1990) is well recognized and has been a major concern of recent government administrations (Montagne 1990). Drug abuse trends are influenced by availability and accessibility of the substance. The ease of obtaining and ingesting a drug is influential in deciding the nature and duration of a drug trend (Montagne 1990). Owing to the escalating drug problem, the analysis of drugs of abuse now accounts for a major proportion of the workload of major city crime laboratories, being in excess of 70% of cases handled (Jackson 1986). The following drugs are the most commonly encountered: cannabis, cocaine, phencyclidine, heroin, and amphetamines, as well as the amphetamine derivative designer drugs (Meyers pers. corn., Larsen pers. corn., Katzung 1989q Gold & Giannini 1987, Hoffman 1983a-d, Giannini 1989, Miller & Gold 1989, Gold 1989). These compounds may be encountered in their pure form or in street preparations adulterated with various compounds such as caffeine, strychnine, and sugars (Jackson 1986, Hoffman 1983d, Shannon 1988, Schawbell 1990, Barnfield et al. 1988) which may complicate the analysis. In the United States, cocaine street samples presently have a range of purity from 14% to 75% with an average of about 40% (Shannon 1988). Heroin samples are usually less than 2% pure, whereas phencyclidine and amphetamine are commonly encountered in their pure form (Meyers pers. corn., Larsen pers. corn.). Unfortunately, automated
methods used in clinical drug identification and therapeutic drug monitoring are not directly applicable to the identification of illicit dosage forms submitted to the crime laboratory. Forensic examination of street drugs, that is the analysis and identification of controlled substances to the elucidation of questions that occur in judicial proceedings, is time consuming and considerably complicated, requiting the use of several tests.
