Journal of analytical toxicology
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Comparative Study
A field evaluation of five on-site drug-testing devices.
A field study was performed at two police agencies to evaluate the utility and accuracy of five on-site urine analysis drug-testing devices when used to test driving under the influence (DUI) arrestees. The devices evaluated were AccuSign, Rapid Drug Screen, TesTcup-5, TesTstik, and Triage. Standard workplace screening cut-off concentrations were used and samples were tested for marijuana, cocaine and metabolites, amphetamine(s), opiates, and PCP (except opiates 300 ng/mL). ⋯ Fifty to 90% of the positive amphetamine(s) samples contained MDMA. A similar percentage of the opiate-positive samples contained hydromorphone or hydrocodone. When additional drugs were included in the confirmation testing, it was concluded that the on-site urine analysis drug-testing results were useful in DUI investigations.
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Oxycodone is a semi-synthetic opioid that is structurally similar to codeine and equipotent to morphine in producing analgesic effects. Oxycodone has been prescribed in many immediate-release formulations including Percodan, Percocet, Tylox, Roxicodone, and Toxicet. In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration approved Oxycontin, a controlled-release form of oxycodone. ⋯ Oxycodone-d3 was used as an internal standard for quantitation. The assays were linear from 0.10 to 5.0 mg/L. The tissue distribution ranges of oxycodone in the 36 case examples were heart blood 0.12-46 mg/L (36), femoral blood + < 0.10-13 mg/L (35), liver 0.11-6.1 mg/kg (16), urine 2.5-122 mg/L (22), bile 0.19-49 mg/L (15), vitreous 0.24-0.82 mg/L (6), and gastric 0.06-119 mg total (21).
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This paper presents a fatality due to massive, intravenous self-administration of nefopam (Acupan), a non-opiate central analgesic, in a 37-year-old female. Nefopam was measured in various postmortem samples by means of high-pressure liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry via an ionspray interface. Heart blood concentration was 4.38 microg/mL and exceeded by approximately 30 times the highest therapeutic levels with the usual reservations concerning possible postmortem redistribution. This is only the third case of death following nefopam overdose reported in the literature.
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The impact factor of a scientific journal is simply the ratio of the number of citations to the number of citable items (articles and reviews) over a given time period, usually two years after the year of publication. Trends in the impact factor of Journal of Analytical Toxicology (JAT) are reviewed and compared with other leading journals in the forensic sciences and toxicology. ⋯ This could be achieved in a number of ways, such as speeding the editorial-handling and peer-review processes, by including one or more invited review articles in each issue of the journal, or by increasing the number of references cited so the references/article ratio increases. Regardless of journal impact factor, an article should be judged by its usefulness to the field and not the prestige of the journal where it is published.
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Foods containing seeds or oil of the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa L.) are increasingly found in retail stores in the U. S. The presence of delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in these foods has raised concern over their impact on the results of workplace drug tests for marijuana. ⋯ A THC intake of 0.6 mg/day is equivalent to the consumption of approximately 125 mL of hemp oil containing 5 microg/g of THC or 300 g of hulled seeds at 2 microg/g. These THC concentrations are now typical in Canadian hemp seed products. Based on our findings, these concentrations appear to be sufficiently low to prevent confirmed positives from the extended and extensive consumption of hemp foods.