Reasearch paper about Adulterants in toxicology specimens Research

Reasearch about Adulterants in toxicology specimens - Research Paper Example Basically, there are two classes of adulterants. One class includes the commonly available household substances including water, bleach, detergent, eye drops, baking soda, iodine tincture, and vinegar. The opposite classification includes the commercially out there adulterants with the subsequent ingredients: (1) nitrite: klear and whizzies. (2) Acid: â€Å"THC-FREE" and "Amber 13". (3) Detergent with purafyzi and test clean. (4) Glutaraldehyde: "Instant Clean Additive."(5) Oxidizing reagents: stealth and clear choic (Levine 5-6). In that sense, adulterants that are added to reduce the amount of expensive product in illicit drugs are termed as cutting agents. According to a view shared Levine (41) numerous biological specimens are usually tested for drug abuse. The compulsory guidelines for workplace drug testing need to make use of the urine as the basis of drug testing matrix. This is attributed to the fact that urine specimens usually have high drug concentrations and also contai n metabolites. On the other hand, alternate specimens provide particular advantageous over urine. They include: blood, saliva, semen, breath, earwax, nasal secretions, breast milk, nails, hair, and sebum all have the potential of being drug testing matrices. Blood is viewed to be a very useful matrix if the aim of the testing to determine the relationship between drug concentration and pharmacological effects. In that sense, hair and nails can also detect the long term or chronic use. Generally, the potential benefits of utilizing biological matrices as an alternative to urine include: greater analyte stability, less invasive collection requirements, a lower disease risk, ability to determine parent or the pharmacological active moiety, and easier shipment and storage (42). Urine Regulated workplace drug testing entities use urine as the specimen of choice for determining cocaine metabolite, opiates, amphetamines, and cannabinoids. In the non-regulated drug testing entities it may b e used to test for additional drug classes such as ethanol, benzodiazepines, and methadone. Illegal drug users may try to falsify the results by means of in vitro adulteration of specimens (Mikkelsen and Ash 2335). The adulterants can be added to urine so as to interfere with the definitive accuracy of drug tests. Most of these adulterants are oxidative in nature. Bleach, chromate, nitrite, and hydrogen peroxide are viewed as effective urine adulterants sometimes with pH adjusting substances, for instance sodium bicarbonate or vinegar that are utilized by the illegal drug users in order to conceal the positive results of marijuana. A study conducted by Buddha and Jacobs reported that there are many methods that can be used to establish the availability of chromate and nitrite. However, the effects of other oxidizing agents that could probably be used as adulterants and could possibly be hard to detect or measure the level of toxicity in the specimen of urine. According to study cond ucted by Buddha and Jacobs (460) found out that urine samples containing 9-carboxylic acid THC-acid were actually treated with oxidizing agents that are commonly available. This means that these adulterants can be detected by most drug testing labs’ procedures. However, some less expensive tests do not comprehensively search for them. Since not all the adulterants can