environmental health

Lead Chemist Brandon Jones performs analysis of an unknown drug material at DC DFS PHL

by Luke C. Short, PhD, manager, chemistry, Washington, DC Department of Forensic Sciences Public Health Laboratory Division; Brandon Jones, lead chemist; Washington, DC Department of Forensic Sciences Public Health Laboratory Division; and Anthony Tran, DrPH, MPH, D( ABMM), director, Washington, DC Department of Forensic Sciences Public Health Laboratory Division

As emerging synthetic drugs appear on the streets, DC DFS PHL intends to update the database and methods to ensure coverage of new substances.

Synthetic drugs are often too new to be classified as illegal, as well as too new to be picked up on health screens from patients after a suspected overdose. A public health need at the local level exists for a group that sits in both communities, first addressing the identification and classification of new drugs, and subsequently funneling this information to other state and federal partners.

In Washington, DC, successful prosecution of new synthetic drugs along with effective current toxicological screens in 2016 led the Washington, DC Department of Forensic Science( DC DFS) Public Health Laboratory Division( PHL) to create the Forensic Chemistry Unit( FCU) to develop new drug detection techniques and work closely with the laboratory to implement new testing methods for clinical specimens. FCU was formed within the DC DFS Biomonitoring and Analytical Chemistry Unit( BACU), which partners with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention( CDC) as a Laboratory Response Network-Chemical( LRN-C) Level 2 Laboratory. As a member of LRN-C, BACU is partially funded by CDC’ s Public Health Emergency Preparedness( PHEP) Cooperative Agreement. By having the established chemical emergency response capacity from LRN-C, DC DFS was able to leverage the knowledge base and personnel of BACU to establish and provide scientific support to the new FCU.

Support of New Drug Classification

FCU has worked with the Washington, DC Office of the Attorney General( OAG) to create the“ Synthetics Abatement and Full Enforcement Drug Control Emergency Amendment Act of 2015”(“ SAFE DC Emergency Act”), enacted into law on April 5, 2016. Prior to this bill, the DC Uniform Controlled Substances Act of 1981 listed specific chemicals as controlled substances, not classes of chemicals, leaving a window for new synthetic drugs to avoid classification under the law. SAFE DC responds to this by grouping two categories of synthetic drugs, synthetic cannabimimetic agents and synthetic cathinones, thereby providing a basis to classify the emerging synthetic drugs as controlled substances under DC Law.

Analytical Testing Example – Fentanyl, A Synthetic Opioid

Using an acetonitrile extraction and centrifugation filtration method developed at FCU, synthetic cannabimimetic agents have a consistent limit of detection( LOD) in the low micrograms per milliliter of organic extract. Acetonitrile was found to also effectively extract synthetic opioids from matrix and identify both synthetic opioid and other controlled dangerous substances( CDS) present. Analysis of fentanyl( see Figure 1) was consistent to values reported by the Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs( SWGDRUG).

During the gas chromatography mass spectrometry( GC-MS) performance specification evaluation of fentanyl using the FCU CDS method, a matrixmatched LOD( 20 at 25μg / mL) was found to be 4.3μg / mL, almost two orders of magnitude lower concentration than reference test standards( Cayman