Handheld Raman spectroscopy offers a rapid and mobile technique for determining drugs nondestructively. The further advantage analyzing drug products (DPs) thanks to its ability measure samples through packaging, thus preserving evidence integrity continuity. This research evaluated the use of handheld Fourier transform (FT)-Raman characterization street DPs (n = 254) diverse formulations. spec...

The identification of the illicit substances in low-purity seized drugs with Raman spectroscopy is an outstanding problem. low concentration target molecule demands high sensitivity and presence impurities produces a strong fluorescence background that makes challenging. Although analyzers 785 830 nm excitation wavelengths provide sensitivity, longer 1064 wavelength lower fluorescence. In this ...

ABSTRACT This article aims to present the experience of implementing ‘Street Outreach Teams’ in city Recife-PE as a strategy for HIV/AIDS prevention and Harm Reduction (HR) associated with use alcohol, crack, other drugs. Although review history this process reveals tensions, volatility, alternations care models implemented by management, analysis points out importance reaffirming, current cont...

OBJECTIVE Despite dramatic increases in the misuse of prescription opioids, the extent to which their intravenous injection places drug users at risk of acquiring hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains unclear. We sought to compare risk of HCV acquisition from injection of prescription opioids to that from other street drugs among high-risk street youth. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Va...

BACKGROUND Drug users engaged in survival sex work are at heightened risk for drug- and sexual-related harms. We examined factors associated with survival sex work among street-involved youth in Vancouver, Canada. METHODS From September 2005 to November 2007, baseline data were collected for the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS), a prospective cohort of street-recruited youth aged 14-26 who use illi...

Adult diseases cause signifi cant pediatric morbidity. Eleven percent of women of childbearing age are current illicit drug users, and 5% of pregnant women selfreport drug use during pregnancy, which is no doubt an underestimate of the true prevalence. Opiates are the second most common class of abused drugs, after marijuana. Despite the commonly held belief that most opiates are street drugs, ...

As reported in the 2011 World Drug Report, cocaine is likely to be the most problematic drug worldwide in terms of trafficking-related violence and second only to heroin in terms of negative health consequences and drug deaths. Over a period of 60 years, cocaine evolved from the celebrated panacea of the 1860s to outlawed street drug of the 1920s. As demonstrated by the evolution of cocaine use...