Part VI: Drug Analysis

History of Drug Analysis:

At the Age of the Enlightenment and the Rennisance the studies of Paracelsus and Orfila began to shape. Paracelsus determined that specific chemicals were responsible for the toxicity of plants and animals, he also determined that the efects on the human body by chemicals is dependent upon the dose. Orfila a Spanish physician is often credited for founding toxicology.  The first person to use a cemical method for detecting poisons was Dr. Hermann Boerhaave. He would place sustances that were thought to contian poison on hot red coals and test for the smell to determine if the substances was in fact a chemical.

Drug Testing:

Toxicology tests or "Tox Screens" can be done through Blood tests, Urine tests, and Tissue samples. Each of these test can and will show the amount of a drug substance that a person has ingested, if any. When

testing the blood from a body during a autopsy, the blood is generally taken from two places, the heart and the femoral vain that is in the leg. Blood is taken from both places because the concentration of the drugs can be different, by taking blood from the vein and the heart the accuracy of the tests are boosted. Urine samples can be taken if there is any left in the body, tissue samples are taken from many of the organs; including the liver, brain, and kidney. When the tissue sample has been taken it is placed in a specimen container so that screening can begin. There are gas there are three major types of toxicology test; Gas chromotography, mycrocrystalline, Spectrophotometry, but there are, of course, many other tests that I havent mentioned. Gas Chromotography is used to determine the amount of alcohol that is in the blood. The sample is placed into a heated reaction chamber where it will vaporize, meaning that it will become a gas. The sample is moved through the stationary phase column. The elements in the sample separate while in the tube and at the end of the column. Each component generates there own individual electrical impulses that are recorded as a chromatogram of response versus the time. So a chromatogram usually turns out as a number of uneven peaks which can be identified by comparing the shape and time they came out with a reference chromatogram or a control sample. This test is just one of how the tests work and how they test for alcohol and drug levels in substances.

Cases Involving Drug Analysis:

On August 27, 2003 at the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church after service over two dozen members went to the recreation area for doghnuts and coffee, at first everything was normal, but in a change of events over a dozen members became violently ill, samples were taken from the members and sent to the toxicology lab of the Maine Public Safety Department. Over the next few day one of the churches oldest members Walter Reid died at the age of 78, the test that had been run on the coffee smaples determined that the cause of the illness and eath was arsenic poisining. Daniel Bondeson a member of the same church that Reid attended shot himself in the test and died during surgery, a suicide note was found in which he admitted to the crimes, he says that he only wanted to give evryone "bellyaches". This is an example of how something that starts out as a joke can turn serious when playing with harmful drugs.

                                                                                     Drug Testing Project:

In our lab class we were given a project in which we were given different substances that were meant to mimc different types of drugs. Using different types of indicators such as bromothymol blue, phenolphthalein, and ph paper, we were able to determine the ph of the different substances. The ph of the substance allowed us to determine if the substnace was in fact a drug. For example my group and I were given three samples that were suposed to be Aspirin, using Bromothymol blue and ph paper we tested to make sure that this was true, the bromothymol blue turned yellow indicating that it was a acid, bromothymol blue will turn green in nuetral substances, and blue in base solutions. Then using ph paper we indicated that the substance we were testing had a ph of 3, this means that it was an acid, using these two tests we were able to determine that the first  substance was Aspirin but the other two samples were not. The Picture above shows all the chemicals (indicators) used to analyze the substances so that we could determine the type of drug and whether or not it was a drug.

Sources:
http://www.mshp.dps.mo.gov/MSHPWeb/PatrolDivisions/CLD/Toxicology/toxicology.html

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/forensics/toxicology/index.html

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/0170950502002.png

http://www.bxscience.edu/publications/forensics/articles/toxicology/r-toxi01.htm