Analysis of 6-Acetylmorphine, Morphine, and Codeine in the Uncut Hair, Cut Hair and Nails of Heroin Abusers after Different Withdrawal Times

Authors:

Hang Chen, Ping Xiang and Min Shen*

Volume 2, Issue 2

Abstract

As hair and nail are powerful tools for drug exposure history investigation, it is not only used to investigate whether an individual "used" drug, but also used to investigate whether the drug is "withdrawal" in recent years. Hair and nail samples from 69 subjects with different heroin withdrawal times have been analysed in this study, for evaluating how 6-acetylmorphine, morphine, and codeine residual in hair (cut or uncut) and nail. Pulverized under liquid nitrogen environment and ultrasonic bath were used for extraction. A statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the mean residual "half-lives" of target compounds in uncut hair, which were determined to be 1.10±0.39 months, 1.68±0.44 months, and 1.52±0.45 months, respectively. In contrast, nail analysis did not correlated with the change of drug taking. These results provide meaningful data in hair analysis to investigate drug withdrawal.

Keywords:

Forensic science; Hair; Nails; 6-acetylmorphine; Morphine; Haircut

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