Heroin adulterants

Naess, O., and Rasmussen, K. E. (1997). Micellar electrokinetic chromatography of charged and neutral drugs in acidic running buffers containing a zwitterionic surfactant, sulfonic acids or sodium dodecyl sulphate — separation of heroin, basic by-products and adulterants. /. Chromatogr. A 760, 245-251. 

Today, as a result of criminal prohibition, heroin is only available on the black market and is commonly adulterated with admixtures that increase the health risks, including the likelihood of overdose." Additionally, under criminal prohibition, most states do not allow heroin users to obtain sterile syringes users are left to re-use syringes and share these with other users. ... 

RP-HPLC with UV (230 nm) detection was used by Zelkowicz et al. [21] to reconstruct a simulated heroin distribution chain in order to group sample having the same origin even after adding different amounts of adulterants. 

January 2005, p. 6 I. S. Lurie, P. A. Hays, A. D. Garcia, and S. Panicker, Use of Dynamically Coated Capillaries for the Determination of Heroin, Basic Impurities and Adulterants with Capillary Electrophoresis, J. Chromatogr. A 2004,1034, 227. 

The key precursors, or ingredients, in the manufacture of methaqualone are the chemicals N-acetylanthran-lic acid and anthranilic acid. Because methaqualone is produced illegally, the drug is frequently cut, or adulterated, with other substances called fillers, ranging from talcum powder to heroin. 

N. K. Nair, V. Navaratnam, and V. Rajananda, Analysis of illicit heroin, I, an effective TLC system for separating eight opiates and five adulterants, J. Chromatogr., 366 363 1986). 

As a result of the clandestine processes used in the production of heroin, the final product may contain not only heroin but also monoacetylmorphine, acetylcodeine, opium alkaloids, and other trace impurities. At the street level, heroin exhibits also contain adulterants such as quinine, procaine, methapyrilene, and various sugars. The determination of all these substances provides a good basis on which to compare heroin exhibits. 

Schlesinger et al ( 3) reported that non-destructive neutron activation analysis (NAA) can be employed to compare drugs sold in illicit channels through the determination of their elemental compositions. This early work was amplified by Pro and Brunelle (4), combining atomic absorption analysis with NAA. Although the determination of elemental composition can be useful, this approach suffers from the fact that it may not be used when heroin has been packaged differently or adulterated with another... 

Lerner and Mills (JjO reported the presence of 0 -monoacetyl-morphine as a common constituent in heroin and suggested that the ratio of heroin to monoacetylmorphine would not change during adulteration. Others have dealt primarily with the identification of the adulterants present, either other drug substances or sugars (6,7). Grooms (j3) and Miller (9) have attempted to include the analysis of adulterants with the presence of monoacetylmorphine. In each of these cases, the resolution of the various components was insufficient to provide good quantitative data. 

We have developed method for the quantitative determination of heroin, O -monoacetylmorphine, acetylcodeine, morphine, and codeine which is applicable to a wide variety of heroin samples. Since the relative proportion of these substances should remain unchanged during any additional handling of the material, this method enables one to compare seemingly unlike heroin samples. This information, coupled with other analytical information such as the physical appearance of the exhibit and the presence or absence of adulterants, provides a good basis on which to compare exhibits. 

Also, because of the additional substances present in adulterated samples, the peak area normalization method is applied only to those peaks due to heroin processing, including opium alkaloids, if present. 

Work is continuing on the analysis of heroin exhibits to develop a larger data base. Work is also continuing on more quantitative methods for adulterated heroin samples. 

In all the cases the heroin had been adulterated with veterinary clenbuterol. 

These authors reported high efficiency separations of heroin, heroin impurities, degradation products, and adulterants (Fig. 8.1). Also discriminated were acidic and neutral impurities present in heroin seized by law enforcement agencies, as well as in illicit cocaine samples, with resolution of benzoylecgon-ine, cocaine, cis- and frans-cinnamoylcocaine. MEKC was also used with a broad spectrum of other compounds of forensic interest, including psilocybin, morphine, phenobarbital, psilocin, codeine, methaqualone, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), amphetamine, chlordiazepoxide, methamphetamine, lora-zepam, diazepam, fentanyl, phencyclidine hydrochloride (PCP), cannabidiol, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which were all separated with baseline resolution. 

Figure 8.1 MEKC of bulk heroin, heroin impurities, degradation products and adulterants. Conditions capillary, 25 cm X 50 mm i.d. voltage, 20 kV temperature, 40° C buffer, 85 mM SDS-8.5 mAf phosphate-8.5 mM borate-15% acetonitrile, pH 8.5 detector wavelength, 210 nm. Peaks b, morphine c, 3-MAM d, 6-MAM e, acetylcodeine f, heroin g, phenobarbital h, noscapine i, papaverine j, methaqua-lone. (From Weinberger and Lurie, 1991, with permission.)...

Heroin samples, often identified in a preliminary way on the basis of their smell, comprise a large number of opiate drugs which are frequently adulterated with a wide variety of other drugs and pharmacologically inactive materials. Some of the drugs present in this way are themselves controlled substances and so a wide variety of presumptive tests need to be performed to identify all of the classes of drug that might be present. 

The situation is further complicated by the fact that different drugs may be mixed with heroin at different times. For example, in European heroin, in the early 1980s, the drugs were mainly adulterated with caffeine and procaine. Towards the mid to late 1980s, this changed to adulteration with phenobarbitone and... 

Table 5.2 TLC solvent systems that can be used to separate opiate drugs and adulterants found in heroin samples and published Rf data obtained when using these systems...

Kaa, E., Impurities, adulterants and diluents of illicit heroin. Changes during a 12 year period . Forensic Sci. Int., 64, 171-179 (1994). 

Lurie, I.S., Hays, P.A., Garcia, A.E., Panicker, S. Use of dynamically coated capillaries for the determination of heroin, basic impurities and adulterants with capillary electrophoresis. J. Chromatogr. A 1034, 227-235 (2004)... 

Krishnamurthy, R. Ashwini, K. Simultaneous determination of adulterants and coextractants in illicit heroin by HPTLC with two successive mobile phases. J. Planar Chromatogr.-Mod. TLC 1997,10, 388-390. 

Addicts typically use street heroin mixed with a number of adulterants, such as quinine or lactose, and they often inject combinations of illicit drugs. Three patients who developed the clinical and morphologic picture of heroin nephropathy claimed to have used only intravenous pentazocine and tripelennamine [41]. It has been suggested that the contaminants rather than the narcotic itself might be the inciting factor through the mechanism of mesangial overload [34]. 

Moody C, Kaufman R, McGuire D, Grossman S.The role of adulterants in heroin nephropathy. NKF (New Orleans) 1985 32. Brown SM, Stimmel B, Taub RN, Kochwa S, Rosenfield RE. Immunologic dysfunction in heroin addicts. Arch Intern Med 1974 134 1001-1006. 

Street heroin is adulterated or cut many times as it changes hands on the way from the producer to the importer to those who sell to individual users, and it may vary enormously in quality. If sophisticated chemical production and refining techniques are used, uncut heroin can be quite pure and appears as a white odorless powder that can be injected, smoked (chasing the dragon), or taken intranasally (snorted). On the... 

RELATIVE RETENTION TIMES AND 220 254 ABSORBANCE RATIOS FOR HEROIN AND ITS ADULTERANTS AND BY-PR0DUCTS121. 

Wittwer investigated the influence of the volatilization of amines in the mobile phase by testing the same solvent system, containing amnonia in various concentrations (without changing the water content of the mobile phase) in combination with a silica gel column. For the compounds tested, common adulterants or impurities of illicit heroin samples, only a few changes in the elution order were observed, particularly for the early eluting compounds, and furthermore an increase of retention time was observed upon decreasing ammonia concentration (Table 7.11). However, the relative retention varied little for most test compounds. The water content of the mobile phase was found to play an important role in the selectivity of the system. Retention times were reduced considerably on increase of the water content of the mobile phase but some compounds were more affected than others. Therefore, the water content of the mobile phase should be controlled... 

Fig. 7.6. Separation of heroin and some common adulterants and contaminations Column amino-propyl bonded silica (S5NH.)(Phase-Sep) (250x4 mm ID), mobile phase acetonitrile - 0.005 M tetrabutylammoniurn phosphate (85 15), flow rate 1 ml/min, detection UV 284 nm. Peaks 1, noscapine 2, papaverine 3, caffeine 4, heroin 5, acetylcodeine 6, 6-0-acetyl-morphine 7, codeine 8, strychnine 9, morphine, (Reproduced with permission from ref. 93, by the courtesy of Journal Chromatographic Science)...

HPLC has been extensively applied in the analysis of indole alkaloids - for quite different purposes. A series of papers on the analysis of drugs of abuse includes the analysis of one or more indole alkaloids, particularly strychnine, a common adulterant of heroin (Table 8.16). Moreover strychnine and brucine have often been used as test compounds for a number of separation systems 2, 1 2 32,4 43 as well as internal standards1 33. 

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