title: Forensic drug testing for opiates: I. Detection of 6-acetylmorphine in urine as an indicator of recent heroin exposure; drug and assay considerations and detection times.
abstract: The urinary excretion patterns of 6-acetylmorphine (6-AM), free morphine, and total morphine were determined by GC/MS assay for six human subjects who received single doses of 3.0 and 6.0 mg of heroin hydrochloride. Clinical specimens were collected and combined with standardized drug urines into a 400 specimen/standard set. The urines were coded, randomized, and analyzed under blind conditions. The GC/MS assay had a limit of sensitivity of 0.81 ng/mL for 6-AM and displayed a linear response across a concentration range of 1-100 ng/mL. Following heroin administration, 6-AM was excreted rapidly with an average half-life of 0.6 h. This resulted in a very short detection time for 6-AM with a range of 2-8 h at the most sensitive cutoff limit. This short detection time limits the usefulness of 6-AM as a marker for identification of heroin abusers to a period immediately after drug use. In contrast, free morphine and total morphine were detectable up to approximately 24 h after heroin administration. The average half-life for free morphine was 3.6 h and for total morphine was 7.9 h. After morphine and codeine administration, no 6-AM was detected by GC/MS above the 0.81-ng/mL detection limit of the assay. It is concluded that the presence of 6-AM in urine can be interpreted with confidence to mean that heroin, or 6-AM, was administered within 24 h of specimen collection and that the presence of 6-AM in urine is not caused by morphine or codeine administration.
authors.affiliation: Addiction Research Center, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Baltimore, Maryland 21224.
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Cone
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Welch
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: B D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Paul
mesh_terms: D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006207:Half-Life; D003932:Heroin / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015394:Molecular Structure; D009020:Morphine / Q000652:urine; D009022:Morphine Derivatives / Q000493:pharmacokinetics / Q000652:urine*; D011897:Random Allocation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D009022:Morphine Derivatives; D003932:Heroin; D009020:Morphine; C026979:6-O-monoacetylmorphine