title: Identification of heroin in street doses using 1D-TOCSY nuclear magnetic resonance
abstract: Heroin street doses are complex mixtures commonly analyzed in forensic laboratories. Identification of the illicit substance in these street doses is among the primary analytical tasks of a forensic laboratory. We demonstrate that the one-dimensional ID-TOCSY NMR experiment permits identification of heroin in standard mixtures containing up to ten or more different components. This method produces an easily-identified and effective "fingerprint" for heroin within a mixture of other substances. The method has been successfully tested as a tool for identification of heroin in street doses from police casework in Israel. This NMR technique is robust and quick (a measurement can be carried out in 10-15 min), and it does not require any preliminary physical or chemical treatments of the sample to be examined, due to the effective spectroscopic "filtering" of the interfering components. The ID-TOCSY NMR method can potentially be used in combination with additional analytical methods as a routine tool in forensic laboratories to positively identify heroin for court purposes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Suryaprakash
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Azoury
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Goren
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jelinek