ABSTRACT: cocaine is extracted from the leaves of erythroxylum coca, coca plant. The content of cocaine in leaves is approximately 0.5-1% cocaine. This drug is abuses as phycotrophic drug worldwide. In Europe it is ranked second after cannabis in its consumption. It directly effect on central nervous system and work stimulant (1). As mentioned above it is most popular among the drug users, drug of abuse related death are estimated between 104,000-263,000/per years. In Europe cocaine related death is estimated to be 21%. Many crimes are happening in our day to day life in which drugs (cocaine) are involved. In these cases cocaine and its metabolites may be analyzed in several specimen including blood, urine, hair, stomach content etc. here we should only focus on the analysis of hair with the help of gas chromatography- mass spectrometer. In this paper we have restudied the research papers which …show more content…
Chemical structure of cocaine and its metabolites
CRITICAL ANALYSIS: when we are doing the cocaine analysis from hair several steps are there which are as follows:
• Specimen
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But for cocaine as it is basic in nature alkaline digestion completely destroying it so we rather choose to do the mild extraction with methanol or acid extraction. Moreover the incorporation of cocaine is more in hair shaft then its metabolites (BZE)(2)
Screening method: there are variety of methods which is use to screen cocaine from the hair sample. However some are more specific in nature with the cocaine. The detection limit of the instruments decides their successful application in the analysis of cocaine from hair.(3) TABLE 1.4
Instrument detector Drugs and its metabolites detection LOD (level of detection )