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Drugs of Abuse: Trends and Advanced Analytical Methods

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Abstract

Abuse of drugs is correlated with various medical, behavioral, psychological, spiritual, financial, social, family, and legal concerns and profoundly impact the people involved, their families, and society. Drugs of abuse (DOA) testing in biological specimens may provide objective information on the usage or misuse of drugs by the person involved and thus it is considered as one of the main tasks in the different disciplines of forensic toxicology and related areas. Testing is carried out for two primary reasons. The first is to test for or prove an alleged acute drug effect or intoxication/poisoning. The second is monitoring abstinence from DOA, e.g., in workplace drug testing.

This chapter deals with the types and methods of analysis for DOA testing that focus on trends and developments in the last decade regarding relevant analytes and analytical methodology. The authors often rely on alternative matrices for monitoring DOAs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Sciences, College of Criminal Justice, Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Sachil Kumar

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  1. Sachil Kumar
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Correspondence to Sachil Kumar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Biology and Serology Division, Regional Forensic Science Laboratory, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Pankaj Shrivastava

  2. University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Jose Antonio Lorente

  3. School of Forensic Sciences, The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Ankit Srivastava

  4. Department of Forensic Science, Government Institute of Forensic Science, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

    Ashish Badiye

  5. Department of Forensic Science, Government Institute of Forensic Science, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

    Neeti Kapoor

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Kumar, S. (2023). Drugs of Abuse: Trends and Advanced Analytical Methods. In: Shrivastava, P., Lorente, J.A., Srivastava, A., Badiye, A., Kapoor, N. (eds) Textbook of Forensic Science . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1377-0_24

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