Synthetic cannabinoid drug use as a cause or contributory cause of death.

Adverse effects associated with synthetic cannabinoid use include agitation, psychosis, seizures and cardiovascular effects, all which may result in a lethal outcome. We report the collection of data from 25 medical examiner and coroner cases where the presence of synthetic cannabinoids was analytically determined. Participating offices provided case history, investigative and relevant autopsy findings and toxicology results along with the cause and manner of death determination. This information, with the agency and cause and manner of death determinations blinded, was sent to participants. Participants offered their opinions regarding the likely contribution of the toxicology findings to cause and manner of death. The results show that some deaths are being attributed to synthetic cannabinoids, with the highest risk areas being behavioral toxicity resulting in excited delirium, trauma or accidents and as contributing factors in subjects with pre-existing cardiopulmonary disease. While insufficient information exists to correlate blood synthetic cannabinoid concentrations to effect, in the absence of other reasonable causes, the drugs should be considered as a cause or contributory cause of death based on history and circumstances with supporting toxicological data.

Tissue distribution of newer anticonvulsant drugs in postmortem cases.

Levetiracetam, hydroxycarbazepine (the primary product of oxcarbazepine use), and topiramate were quantified using the acid/neutral drug screening procedure employed by this laboratory. Briefly, blood or tissue homogenate spiked with an internal standard (cyclopentobarbital) was buffered to pH 5 and applied to Chem Elut® columns. The columns were washed with methylene chloride, collected, and evaporated to dryness. The residue was reconstituted with 0.033 M trimethylanilinium hydroxide and injected into a gas chromatograph equipped with a DB-5 analytical column (25 m × 0.32-mm i.d.) and a nitrogen-phosphorus detector. A calibration curve using four calibrators ranging in concentration from 2 to 20 mg/L was used for quantification. Despite the limited number of cases for each drug, there were some trends suggested by the data. None of the drugs displayed significant differences in concentration between the heart blood and peripheral (subclavian) blood specimens. Only the hydroxycarbazepine quantifications in one case (case 5) showed significant differences between the two blood sites. This is consistent with other acid/neutral drugs such as acetaminophen and meprobamate. It also appears that the liver and kidney concentrations of the three drugs are on the same order of magnitude as the blood concentrations. Only the levetiracetam concentration in one case (case 3) reflected a liver or kidney concentration greater than 5 times the blood concentration.