Seized drug reporting of NPS helps to guide regional toxicological practice: A 17 month review between 2022 and 2023.

Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are everchanging and plague forensic laboratories who must identify an unending variety of emerging substances and evolve current methodologies to detect these substances. Identifying potential regional NPS targets and timely examining trends in seized drug data could help mitigate the burden laboratories face. Over 17 months, NPS seized drug data were processed and categorized from three laboratories located across the United States to determine any NPS regional similarities and prevalent NPS drug categories: the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center (SCRFSC), and the Orange County Crime Laboratory (OCCL). Seized drug materials, including pills, powders, and plant material, were primarily analyzed for NPS via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. From June 2022 to October 2023, 1940 NPS seized drug identifications were reported by these laboratories with 63 different NPS reported. Novel synthetic opioids (NSO) were the most prevalent NPS class across all three laboratories (55%), with fluorofentanyl accounting for 74% of NSO identifications. This is unsurprising given the fentanyl epidemic in the United States. Furthermore, these data highlighted varying regional NPS seized drug trends: eutylone, a synthetic cathinone, was one of the most frequently identified NPS in SLED, SCRFSC observed the most diverse set of synthetic cannabinoids, and OCCL observed an increased prevalence in the designer benzodiazepine, bromazolam. NPS scope recommendations are a valuable resource for forensic laboratories; however, most focus on a national perspective. Timely analysis and reporting of NPS seized drug data may help to develop regional NPS scope recommendations laboratories may employ.

Interference of the novel designer benzodiazepine 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam with alprazolam analysis in toxicology and seized drug DUID casework.

In recent years, the emergence of the novel designer benzodiazepine 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam has presented a new challenge for forensic laboratories by interfering with the identification and quantitation of alprazolam. As an isomer of alprazolam, 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam has similar physicochemical properties and can be misidentified in casework samples as alprazolam without a specific method to differentiate the two analytes. Starting in late 2021, the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) received toxicological and seized drug evidence indicating the presence of 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam. An interference study was performed to supplement the laboratory's validated benzodiazepines method for toxicological samples to differentiate alprazolam from 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam. This study showed that while the isomers could not be chromatographically resolved using the current method, they could be differentiated based on their retention times relative to the internal standard, alprazolam-d5. Based on these findings, the HFSC toxicology laboratory reports test results as "unsuitable for analysis due to an interference" if a suspected alprazolam peak elutes before the alprazolam-d5 peak, even if all identification and quantification criteria (e.g., retention time) were acceptable. Additionally, the seized drug and toxicology laboratories re-evaluated previously analyzed alprazolam-positive casework to determine if suspected 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam had been misidentified as alprazolam. This report presents three cases: one case with toxicological evidence indicating the presence of both 4'-chloro deschloroalprazolam and alprazolam, and two cases with both seized drug material and toxicology evidence indicating the presence of 4'chloro deschloroalprazolam with no detected alprazolam.