تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Drug identification , Opiates

المؤلف:  Sue Jickells , Adam Negrusz (Editors)

المصدر:  Clarkes Analytical Forensic Toxicology

الجزء والصفحة:  160

2026-10-05

146

Drug identification

Opiates

As heroin samples always contain codeine, codeine is also detected in cases of heroin abuse. Morphine is a metabolite of codeine and can be detected when codeine is abused. To differentiate between codeine and heroin abuse, the quantification of both drugs was proposed (Sachs and Arnold 1989). If the morphine concentration is clearly higher than the codeine concentration in the hair sample, heroin or morphine abuse is highly probable. If the codeine concentration is higher than the morphine level, it may be assumed that codeine has been ingested. However, the discrimination of heroin users from individuals exposed to other sources of morphine alkaloids can be achieved by the direct identification of heroin or 6-MAM (Nakahara et al. 1992a; Sachs and Uhl 1992). In this case, alkaline hydrolysis must not be used because heroin is hydrolysed to 6-MAM and ultimately to morphine under alkaline conditions. In most samples, it was demonstrated that 6-MAM concentrations exceeded those of morphine, which is a less lipophilic compound. Other opioids have been detected, including dihydrocodeine, pholcodine, ethylmorphine, dextromoramide, methadone, fentanyl, sufentanyl, pentazocine, zipeprol and buprenorphine (Moeller 1992; Sachs and Kintz 1998).