Forensic & Toxicology Sample Prep - Novel Psychoactive Substances

Novel Psychoactive Substances

Highlighted Applications

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are a range of drugs that have been designed to mimic established drugs.

Manufacturers of these drugs develop new chemicals to replace those that are banned, which means that the chemical structures of the drugs are constantly changing to try to stay ahead of the law.

These drugs are becoming more prevalent in postmortem and impairment cases, so development of effective sample preparation and analytical methods is increasingly important.

Synthetic Benzos in Urine and Blood

Synthetic benzodiazepines are becoming more abused and are considered “legal highs”.

There are several different extraction methods that can be used to extract synthetic benzodiazepines from biological matrices such as urine and blood. This application note evaluates three common extraction techniques, detailing the methodology used, and comparing results in terms of analyte recovery and matrix effects.

Synthetic Cannabinoids in Whole Blood

Synthetic cannabinoids are sold under a wide range of names such as K2, Spice and Legal Highs. They are one of the commonest NPS classes. This method for extraction of and clean up of whole blood samples allows for identification of 12 novel synthetic cannabinoids by LC-MS/MS.

NPS Sample Prep for GC-MS

For GC-MS analyses, these application notes describe simple sample preparation protocols for urine and blood matrices:

Designer Stimulants in Urine
Designer Stimulants in Whole Blood
Bath Salts (Substituted Cathinones)

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Novel Psychoactive Substances: what are they and how do we analyze them?

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