Separation and Identification of Drugs of Abuse in Drug Cottons by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Electrochemical Array Detectors

High performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrochemical array detectors (HPLC-EA) was used to separate and identify heroin, morphine, codeine and cocaine in drug cottons obtained from injection drug users (IDU's). Drug cottons are drug paraphernalia that are used by IDU's to filter the dissolved or cooked drug prior to injection. A simple extraction procedure was developed that allows for the extraction of drugs and adulterants from drug cottons. The total assay time was 50 minutes per sample, including re-equilibration of the HPLC column. The detection limits of the HPLC-EA assay ranged from a low of 4 pg/μL for morphine to 576 pg/μL for cocaine, which rival or exceed current assays for the detection of these drugs. This novel street drug sampling procedure may provide information for monitoring the content and quality of drugs used by IDU's, and in developing harm reduction programs aimed at IDU's.