A-1859A: Advancements in Forensic Toxicology -- CZE Replaces GC/NPD as the Screen of Choice for Basic Drugs

There is no greater analytical challenge in forensic toxicology than the “general unknown,” the search for drugs or poisons that might have caused a death, impaired a driver or drugged the victim of sexual assault. Typically, the first step in such an analysis is one or more screening procedures, each designed to detect a number of analytes in a single analytical pass. All else being equal, the more compounds that are detectable in a single pass, the better. Of all the compounds that are of potential interest forensically, organic bases are the most important. This group includes most of the drugs that affect the central nervous system, in addition to wellknown poisons such as strychnine. It is easy to make a list of several hundred such analytes and, of course, a comprehensive screen would test for them all.