Integrated use of hair analysis to investigate the physical fitness to obtain the driving licence: a casework study.

According to the laws presently in force in Italy and the guidelines of the Driving Licence Enforcement Commission of Verona, applicants for the driving licence with a history of drug abuse undergo a medical examination, during which complete anamnestic and clinical data are recorded. On this occasion, a hair sample (50-200 mg) is collected and a urinalysis program is started consisting of EMIT controls for opiates, methadone, cocaine, barbiturates, amphetamines, cannabinoids, benzodiazepines and alcohol carried out on eight seriate samples, collected at random over about 40 days under direct supervision. The positive results from urine immunoassays are confirmed by standardized GC/MS methods. The hair samples are screened for morphine and cocaine, the most abused illicit substances in our region, using commercial RIAs adopting cut-off levels of 0.1 ng/mg. All positive samples and about 10% of negative are confirmed by HPLC. In case of confirmed positive results, the applicant is informed: if the subject denies use of opiates or cocaine in the recent months, he or she has the chance of submitting for analysis a new hair sample, which is analyzed in parallel with the hair remaining from the previous assay. In case of persisting denial, claiming analytical interferences by other drugs or endogenous substances, further confirmation of results can be carried out by CE and/or by qualitative MS/MS. In addition, hair sampling from multiple sites (scalp, axillary, pubic hair) with different susceptibility to contamination from the external sources can be carried out to rule out the possibility of passive contamination. At present, we investigate more than 700 subjects per year. The results of this integrated diagnostic strategy are presented and discussed.

Chromatographic methods for blood alcohol determination.

This review is focused on the different chromatographic strategies for blood alcohol determination which can be adopted for clinical and/or forensic purposes. Particular attention is paid to gas chromatography and to high-performance liquid chromatography. However, other analytical techniques in common use, such as chemical and enzymic methods, are also briefly presented, together with some, at present unusual or experimental, approaches, such as enzymic reactors and catalytic electrodes, which are suitable for application in column liquid chromatography. Finally, mention is made of the methods for the determination of acetaldehyde, the major ethanol metabolite, and of some proposed markers of chronic alcohol abuse, such as acetaldehyde-protein adducts and carbohydrate-deficient transferrin. In order to give the background of knowledge for the rational choice of an analytical strategy, an updated outline of ethanol metabolism and toxicology is presented, together with basic information for the interpretation of the results. Problems concerning blood sampling and storage are also discussed.

Collisional spectroscopy for unequivocal and rapid determination of morphine at ppb level in the hair of heroin addicts.

A new analytical procedure for the identification of morphine in the hair of heroin addicts has been developed using collisional spectroscopy, on a commercially available, reverse geometry, double focusing instrument. Either collision-induced dissociation (B/E = const) linked scans or mass analysed ion kinetic energy spectra lead to an unequivocal and rapid determination of morphine in hydrolysed hair extract which may be compared with the data obtained by different and more traditional analytical methods.

Liquid chromatography with pre-column dansyl derivatisation and fluorimetric detection applied to the assay of morphine in biological samples.

A simple method employing pre-column dansylation and liquid chromatography is proposed for a very sensitive and specific assay of morphine in biological samples. Nalorphine is used as an internal standard. The detection limit is 0.2 picomol of injected morphine. In the assay of human sera spiked with 150 nmol/l, the intra- and inter-assay coefficients of variation were 3.7% (n = 10) and 4.5% (n = 10), respectively. No interferences were observed from more than 70 opiate and non-opiate drugs. Urine, plasma and total blood were assayed, using different extraction methods, with negligible interference from coextractives.