Analysis of Drugs of Abuse

David D. Cunningham, Cunningham, David D.

Analysis of trace amounts of drugs of abuse is important in a variety of situations, including forensic casework. Here, a method for the facile, rapid collection of traces of drugs from a variety of porous and nonporous surfaces, including fabrics, is detailed. A small amount of extraction solvent, including an internal standard, is applied to the fabric surface, followed by application of a patterned absorbent disk which resorbs much of the extraction solvent along with dissolved traces of any drug present. Over half of the extraction solvent is recovered in 15 s from many natural and synthetic fabrics, with weights ranging from 64 to 374 mg/in.2, by pressing a half-inch diameter patterned glass fiber membrane disk to the wetted area. The patterned disk is then placed in a standard OpenSpot™ holder of a direct analysis in real time (DART) mass spectrometer with a data collection time of 1 or 2 min. Semi-quantitation of low microgram levels of drugs is achieved by comparison of spectra to those from a standard control disk.