ABSTRACT
The development of serological techniques for the detection of commonly abused drugs has provided rapid and highly sensitive diagnostic test procedures. In view of the pressures for drug testing on an ever-increasing scale, many of these methods have found their way into toxicological laboratories with little but the promotional literature for backing. The immunologist’s concept of specificity often appears to be at variance with that of the toxicologist. Most of the antisera prepared against morphine conjugates react with glucuronide-bound morphine as well as with free morphine. The efficiency with which such sera recognize the bound drug varies from one antiserum to the other, as well as for different bleedings from the same animal. It has been our experience that storage of urine specimens at 4°C for several hours or preferably overnight, followed by a tenfold dilution of the clear supernatant, is sufficient preparation of the specimen for its use in the hemagglutination inhibition test.
