Toxicological Analysis: Drug Screening and Confirmation

This chapter provides a snapshot of the most common methods and approaches to drug screening and confirmation, and some of the more recent developments in analytical methodology. In situations where testing is restricted to common drugs of abuse, immunoassays are often used as the initial test to identify if any drugs from those classes are present and then to use mass spectrometry (MS) to confirm the drug. When confronted with a biological exhibit an isolation step(s) is required to extract the substances being targeted from the biological material to avoid interference from endogenous substances and increase the sensitivity of the analysis. The choice of the preferred isolation method depends largely on personal preference and cost considerations. The chapter summarises the most common instrumentation techniques used in forensic toxicology and their relative advantages and disadvantages, and discusses the analytical methods such as immunoassays and chromatography-based methods employed in toxicological analysis.