Prevalence of psychoactive substances, alcohol and illicit drugs, in Spanish drivers: A roadside study in 2015.

A survey was conducted during 2015 to monitor psychoactive substance use in a sample of drivers in Spanish roads and cities. Traffic police officers recruited drivers at sites carefully chosen to achieve representativeness of the driver population. A brief questionnaire included the date, time, and personal and driving patterns data. Alcohol use was ascertained through ethanol breath test at the roadside and considered positive if concentrations >0.05mg alcohol/L were detected. Four drug classes were assessed on-site through an oral fluid screening test that, if positive, was confirmed through a second oral fluid sample at a reference laboratory. Laboratory confirmation analyses screened for 26 psychoactive substances. To evaluate the association between drug findings and age, sex, road type (urban/interurban), and period of the week (weekdays, weeknights, weekend days, weekend nights), logistic regression analyses were done (overall, and separately for alcohol, cannabis and cocaine). A total of 2744 drivers, mean age of 37.5 years, 77.8% men, were included. Overall, 11.6% of the drivers had at least one positive finding to the substances assessed. Substances more frequently testing positive were cannabis (7.5%), cocaine (4.7%) and alcohol (2.6%). More than one substance was detected in 4% of the subjects. The proportion of positive results decreased with age, and was more likely among men and on urban roads. The pattern for alcohol use was similar but did not change with age and increased among drivers recruited at night. Cannabis was more likely to be detected at younger ages and cocaine was associated with night driving. Alcohol use before driving has decreased over the last decade; however, the consumption of other illegal drugs seems to have increased. The pattern of illegal psychoactive substance observed is similar to that declared in surveys of the general population of adults.

Challenges of DNA profiling in mass disaster investigations.

In cases of mass disaster, there is often a need for managing, analyzing, and comparing large numbers of biological samples and DNA profiles. This requires the use of laboratory information management systems for large-scale sample logging and tracking, coupled with bioinformatic tools for DNA database searching according to different matching algorithms, and for the evaluation of the significance of each match by likelihood ratio calculations. There are many different interrelated factors and circumstances involved in each specific mass disaster scenario that may challenge the final DNA identification goal, such as: the number of victims, the mechanisms of body destruction, the extent of body fragmentation, the rate of DNA degradation, the body accessibility for sample collection, or the type of DNA reference samples availability. In this paper, we examine the different steps of the DNA identification analysis (DNA sampling, DNA analysis and technology, DNA database searching, and concordance and kinship analysis) reviewing the "lessons learned" and the scientific progress made in some mass disaster cases described in the scientific literature. We will put special emphasis on the valuable scientific feedback that genetic forensic community has received from the collaborative efforts of several public and private USA forensic laboratories in assisting with the more critical areas of the World Trade Center (WTC) mass fatality of September 11, 2001. The main challenges in identifying the victims of the recent South Asian Tsunami disaster, which has produced the steepest death count rise in history, will also be considered. We also present data from two recent mass fatality cases that involved Spanish victims: the Madrid terrorist attack of March 11, 2004, and the Yakolev-42 aircraft accident in Trabzon, Turkey, of May 26, 2003.