Drummer - The forensic pharmacology of drugs of abuse

Drummer, Olaf H

This book was produced in EPUB format by the Internet Archive.

The book pages were scanned and converted to EPUB format automatically. This process relies on optical character recognition, and is somewhat susceptible to errors. The book may not offer the correct reading sequence, and there may be weird characters, non-words, and incorrect guesses at structure. Some page numbers and headers or footers may remain from the scanned page. The process which identifies images might have found stray marks on the page which are not actually images from the book. The hidden page numbering which may be available to your ereader corresponds to the numbered pages in the print edition, but is not an exact match; page numbers will increment at the same rate as the corresponding print edition, but we may have started numbering before the print book's visible page numbers. The Internet Archive is working to improve the scanning process and resulting books, but in the meantime, we hope that this book will be useful to you.

The Internet Archive was founded in 1996 to build an Internet library and to promote universal access to all knowledge. The Archive's purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages, and provides specialized services for information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities.

Created with abbyy2epub (v.1.7.2)

OLAF H. DRUMMER

WITH A CONTRIBUTION FROM MORRIS ODELL

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/forensicpharmacoOOOOdrum

OLAF H. DRUMMER PhD

Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Victoria, Australia

With a contribution by

Morris Odell

bomas J. Bata Library

TL.LRBOROUGH, ONTARIO

ARNOLD

A member of the Hodder Headline Group LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group,

338 Euston Road, London NWI 3BH

http://www.amoldpublishers.com

Distributed in the United States of America by Oxford University Press, Inc.,

198 Madison Avenue, New York NYI00I6

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

2001 Olaf H. Drummer and Morris Odell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency: 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP OLP.

Whilst the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of going to press, neither the authors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. In particular (but without limiting the generality of the preceding disclaimer) every effort has been made to check drug dosages; however it is still possible that errors have been missed. Furthermore, dosage schedules are constantly being revised and new side effects recognized. For these reasons the reader is strongly urged to consult the drug companies printed instructions before administering any of the drugs recommended in this book.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0 340 76257 8 (hb)

123456789 10

Commissioning Editor: Georgina Bentliff Editorial Assistant: Zoe Elliott Production Editor: Lauren McAllister Production Controller: lain McWilliams

Typeset in 9.5/14 pt Sabon and 9/14 pt Gill Sans by Charon Tec Pvt. Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Italy by Giunti

Foreword xii

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements xiv

Abbreviations xv

Definitions and glossary xvi

I INTRODUCTORY ASPECTS OF DRUG ACTIONS I

1.1 General introduction 2

Use of drugs in the general community 2

Prevalence of drugs in sudden death 2

Manufacture and production of psychoactive drugs 3

Psychoactive substances 4

Alcohol 5

Opioids 6

Cannabis 6

The sedatives and hypnotics 6

Amphetamines, cocaine and other abused stimulants 7

Other drugs of abuse 7

Focus of this book 7

1.2 Specimens and specimen collection procedures 9

Specimens and their relative merits 9

1.3 Analysis and measurement 17

Cut-off levels and approved assays 17

Validation and uncertainty 18

Quality assurance 21

1.4 Pharmacokinetics and duration of action 22

Absorption and bioavailability 22

Volume of distribution 23

Clearance 25

Half-life 25

Metabolism 27

Excretion 28

Duration of action 29

Metabolic interactions 3 I

Pharmacokinetics in the elderly 32

Pharmacokinetics in disease states 33

Pharmacokinetics in obesity 33

Pharmacokinetics in children 34

Effect of blood loss and blood replacements 34

1.5 Tolerance and dependence 36

Defining drug dependency 36

Tolerance 37

Side effects and adverse reactions 37

1.6 Toxicology 38

Chemical instability 38

Metabolic changes 38

Postmortem redistribution 39

Other processes 41

Interpretation of toxicological information 41

References for Section I 43

2 STIMULANTS 49

Foreword 50

2.1 Classification and sources of stimulants 52

Historical aspects 52

Structures and sources of amphetamine-like stimulants 54