Technical Note

REFERENCE: Negrusz A, Perry JL, Moore CM. Detection of dollar bills that line their pockets. Considering all this information, cocaine on various denominations of United States currency. J can casual contact with money contaminated with cocaine result Forensic Sci 1998;43(3)626–629. in positive urinalysis? In one study (2), the reported concentration of benzoylecgonine in urine following casual contact with cocaineABSTRACT: The presence of cocaine on U.S. paper currency colcontaminated currency was below the cutoff value of 150 ng/mL lected in many cities in the United States has previously been for this particular cocaine metabolite. It has also been suggested reported. Currency becomes contaminated during the exchange, storage and use of cocaine. Different currency denominations are that currency becomes contaminated from contact with previously also rolled by drug users and used to snort cocaine. Illicit cocaine contaminated bills in financial institutions. There are sometimes is widely abused and therefore the contaminated paper currency even hundreds of micrograms (in one case even 1327 mg) of can be easily found in common use. A total of 18 bills were analyzed cocaine present on a single bill (1). Widespread currency contamiin our laboratory for cocaine. Ten $20 bills were randomly collected nation may cause a problem for people who on a daily basis deal in Rockford, IL and four $1 bills in Chicago. An additional four uncirculated $1 bills were analyzed as a control group. All bills with large numbers of bills: bank tellers, people who operate were extracted with 0.1 M hydrochloric acid followed by solidmoney counting machines, among others. phase extraction. Cocaine was identified using gas chromaThe aim of this study was to identify and quantitate cocaine on tography/mass spectrometry in full scan mode, and drug quantitaten $20 bills collected randomly from the general circulation in tion was performed in selected ion monitoring mode. A standard Rockford, IL. In addition, four $1 bills were collected randomly curve was prepared and doxepin was used as an internal standard. In addition, for method validation two levels of control solutions in Chicago and analyzed. As a control group, four new and uncirwere analyzed simultaneously. Precision and accuracy values were culated $1 denomination bills were analyzed. Gas chromawithin acceptable ranges. Cocaine was present on 92.8% of all bills tography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was employed for identificollected from the general circulation. All $20 bills were contamication and quantitation of drug on paper currency. This study was nated with cocaine and the amount of drug varied from 0.14 to prompted by the Channel 17 WTVO TV Station in Rockford, 10.02 mg of cocaine per bill (x 4 2.86 mg). Only one $1 bill was cocaine free. In one case ($1 bill), only traces (below quantitation which also provided the $20 bills. limit) of cocaine were found. All four uncirculated $1 bills were cocaine-free. Materials and Methods