Monitoring the crack epidemic through urine testing: establishment of routine detection methods

Abstract

Abuse of crack continues to be of major concern. Because of limits to biological testing, self‐report has been the only mechanism for distinguishing crack use from powder use. Researchers have reported that smoking crack generates unique pyrolysis products that are detectable in urine, but no study has addressed how these products could be used as the marker for crack use, neither has any study addressed how reliable is the detection technology. The National Institute of Justice has developed a project to address these issues. The project consisted of (1) interviews conducted with and urine specimens collected from 2327 adult arrestees; (2) development and validation of procedures for routine GC/MS confirmation of crack use; and (3) establishment of standard profiles for two crack pyrolysis products, anhydroecgonine methylester (AEME) and ecgonidine (ECD). We found that AEME and ECD could be detected in urine specimens for periods of up to 40 hours. Most importantly, we demonstrated that to accurately measure crack use both AEME and ECD are necessary. Our results indicated that nearly 31% of the specimens were positive for undifferentiated cocaine, of which more than 88% were positive for crack. This resulted in crack prevalence rates of nearly 31% for females and 27% for males. These results will be used to further monitor the crack epidemic and to provide information that can inform the development of public policy as it relates to this drug.

THE VALIDITY OF ADULT ARRESTEE SELF-REPORTS OF CRACK COCAINE USE*

“…The presence of AEME and/or ECD in a urine specimen was taken as evidence that crack was used. These metabolites are largely specific to the process of heating cocaine; insufflating (snorting) or injecting cocaine produces only trace amounts of AEME (28).…”

“…The interviews were conducted by trained personnel over the course of approximately 14 consecutive days at each site (see Ref. 28 for more details about the sampling plan).…”

Assessing the Efficacy of the Calendar Method With Oklahoma City Arrestees

“…W d , while the ADAM protocol required the collection of a urine specimen, urinalysis did not distinguish between the types of cocaine for which self-reported data were collected. Because urinalysis can now distinguish between crack and powder cocaine (Riley et al, 2001;Lu et al, 2000), future research should replicate the current analysis and distinguish between cocaine urinalysis results.…”

Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Methylecgonidine, a Crack Cocaine Pyrolyzate

“…Although methylecgonidine has been identified in numerous matrices, the number of blood or plasma samples in which it has been detected numbers less than 50 in the literature. The maximum methylecgonidine blood or plasma concentration accurately reported in the literature is 110 ng/ml (Toennes et al, 2003), whereas the maximal urinary concentration is 6340 ng/ml (Riley et al, 2001). We hypothesized that methylecgonidine is rapidly cleared from the central compartment accounting for low blood, plasma, and tissue concentrations.…”

“…Because methylecgonidine is produced via thermal conversion from cocaine, it can be used as a marker to differentiate between smoking and cocaine use via other routes of administration. In forensic cases, methylecgonidine has been detected in urine (Jacob et al, 1990;Cone et al, 1994;Paul et al, 1999;Riley et al, 2001;Shimomura et al, 2001), blood/ plasma (Jenkins and Goldberger, 1997;Toennes et al, 1999;Shimomura et al, 2001;Fandino et al, 2002;Toennes et al, 2003), saliva (Kintz et al, 1997), perspiration (Kintz et al, 1997), hair (Kintz et al, 1995(Kintz et al, , 1997, and brain and liver (Shimomura et al, 2001) of crack smokers. Although methylecgonidine has been identified in numerous matrices, the number of blood or plasma samples in which it has been detected numbers less than 50 in the literature.…”