Cutting agents

In forensic toxicology, the term adulterant has a different meaning. An adulterant is something added to a urine sample to mask or otherwise defeat the detection of another substance. Bleach is a common adulterant that will cause many screening tests to fail. As a result, it is sometimes necessary to test a sample for the presence of adulterants as well as for the presence of taiget analytes. 

Impurities are materials found with the drug (if it is a natural product) or added to it inadvertently during processing. Cocaine and heroin are drugs that originate from plant matter and thus are usually accompanied by a number of impurities. Codeine, for example, is found in the opium poppy and is frequently an impurity in heroin. Contaminants, a subcategory of impurities, are substances that find their way into the sample by accident. If heroin is extracted with the use of lime (Ca(OH)2) contaminated with barium, the barium that ends up in the heroin is a contaminant that originated as a contaminant in the lime. 

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So-called street drugs for identification of principal components, impurities, adulterants, and cutting agents in order to establish the method of synthesis, to compare the samples seized from users with those from dealers, as well as for comparative analysis or so-called profiling to find out the source of the material. 

The cutting or diluting agent used for cocaine again varies with the individual and the substance that is readily available to that individual. Some of the common cutting agents for cocaine are ... 

The dealer will either be told the percentage of cocaine by a trusted connection or he will be able to approximate the percentage by various means. Some of the ways of ascertaining the approximate percentage of cocaine and the cutting agent are ... 

Benzocaine Street Names Coco snow, flat chucks and potato chips (crack cut w/ benzocaine) Use Cutting agent for crack (increases bulk of product and gives a numbing effect like cocaine) topical OTC anesthetic (brands many OTC topical forms) Actions Topical anesthetic used in many OTC products Effects Methemoglobinemia from excess topical or oral use. Over application of topical oral agents can impair gag reflex... 

Barbiturates and benzodiazepines are usually encountered by the forensic scientist as tablet or capsule preparations that have been diverted from licit somces, or, particularly in the case of barbiturates, as cutting agents in other drug materials (for example, phenobarbitone in heroin samples). 

Cutting agents Materials added to a drug sample to increase its bulk see also Adulterants). 

Use Solvent for cellulose ethers and esters, various natural and synthetic resins flavoring agent fruit syrups cutting agent for pyroxylin. 

Figure 4. Capillary gas chromatographic analysis of illicit heroin. The major components are shown (1) caffeine cutting agent, (2) codeine, (3) monoacetylcodeine, (4) monoacetylmorphine, (5) heroin, (6) papaverine, and (7)...

Figure 4.69 Raman spectral subtraction can be used to identify tbe cutting agent , lactose, used to dilute cocaine. The reference spectrum for lactose is shown as well as tbe spectrum of tbe mixture. Subtraction of the lactose spectrum from the mixture results in a spectrum that matches pure cocaine. [Courtesy of ThermoNicolet, Madison, WI (www.thermonicolet.com).]...

Lidocaine is often detected in comprehensive urine toxicology screening as a resuit of use either as a local anesthetic (eg, for minor procedures in the emergency department) or as a cutting agent for dmgs of abuse. 

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