Cocaine, Opiates, and Ethanol in Homicides in New York City: 1990 and 1991

Abstract

Studies using medical examiner cases are useful in monitoring drug use in special populations. This study assesses the presence of cocaine and its metabolite, benzoylecgonine (BE), opiates and ethanol in all homicide victims who were injured and who survived two hours or less after injury in 1990 and 1991 in New York City. There were 2824 homicides in the study period and cocaine and/or BE were found in 884 (31.3%) of cases. In over half of the cases positive for cocaine/BE, ethanol or opiates were found. African-Americans and Latinos were much more likely than whites or Asians to be positive for cocaine/BE. There were no differences between men and women in regard to being positive for cocaine/BE. Cocaine/BE was most frequently identified among victims 25 to 44 years of age. Males were more likely to be positive for ethanol. There were no differences among age groups or ethnic groups in regard to ethanol except for a very low ethanol incidence among Asians. Victims positive for cocaine/BE were more likely to be killed with firearms in open places. The percentage of victims positive for cocaine/BE remains approximately that found by other studies in the late 1980s, however, the percentage of opiate-positive homicides seems to be increasing. Opiates usually were found with cocaine/BE. Two-thirds of the cocaine and/or BE positive cases had cocaine present, thus they were under the influence of the drug at the time they were injured. The authors discuss how the use of cocaine, ethanol and opiates may be related to one's becoming a homicide victim.

A meta‐analysis of marijuana, cocaine and opiate toxicology study findings among homicide victims

“…Based on our comprehensive search of the literature, we identified 19 published books, journal articles, chapters or reports containing drug toxicology results from homicide victims [3][4][5][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. The 19 publications represented 18 independent studies.…”

“…The 19 publications represented 18 independent studies. Two of the studies were based on the same data [3,4], so we used only one of these studies [3] for all analyses, with two exceptions. In our analysis of the age breakout for opiates and the analysis by weapon type, we used the other study [4] because these breakouts were not available in the first.…”

“…Karlsson (1998) [22] Avis (1996) [15] Garriott (1993) [18] Bouzon (2004) [16] Clark (1996) [17] Hanzlick & Gowitt (1991) [20] Random Effects Mean [3]). For opiates, the two highest age categories were for 25-34 (10%) and 35-44 (13%) [4], with the other age categories having opiate toxicology levels at 4% or less. Four studies provided age category breakouts for cocaine toxicology.…”

“…Gender breakouts were reported for cocaine in five studies [3,4,20,21,25] and for opiates in only one study [5]. No studies provided a gender breakout for marijuana test results.…”

“…Similarly, longitudinal assessments of toxicology results could serve as one indicator of drug market changes or one component of an early warning system of emerging trends in drugs and violence [2]. For instance, as New York City struggled with a drug and violence epidemic in the 1980s associated with a rapid increase in crack cocaine usage, toxicology findings reflected a concomitant increase in the proportion of homicide victims testing positive for cocaine metabolites [3][4][5]. A more in-depth understanding of homicide victim toxicology can also help to clarify the relationships between victim drug use and lethal violence outcomes.…”