School of Chemistry - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/300

Filters

2022 1
1
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
Author: Fitzgerald, John × Author: Leeming, Michael × Author: Reid, Gavin ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Trace residue identification, characterization, and longitudinal monitoring of the novel synthetic opioid β-U10, from discarded drug paraphernalia
    West, H ; Fitzgerald, JL ; Hopkins, KL ; Leeming, MG ; DiRago, M ; Gerostamoulos, D ; Clark, N ; Dietze, P ; White, JM ; Ziogas, J ; Reid, GE (WILEY, 2022-09)
    Empirical data regarding dynamic alterations in illicit drug supply markets in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the potential for introduction of novel drug substances and/or increased poly-drug combination use at the "street" level, that is, directly proximal to the point of consumption, are currently lacking. Here, a high-throughput strategy employing ambient ionization-mass spectrometry is described for the trace residue identification, characterization, and longitudinal monitoring of illicit drug substances found within >6,600 discarded drug paraphernalia (DDP) samples collected during a pilot study of an early warning system for illicit drug use in Melbourne, Australia from August 2020 to February 2021, while significant COVID-19 lockdown conditions were imposed. The utility of this approach is demonstrated for the de novo identification and structural characterization of β-U10, a previously unreported naphthamide analog within the "U-series" of synthetic opioid drugs, including differentiation from its α-U10 isomer without need for sample preparation or chromatographic separation prior to analysis. Notably, β-U10 was observed with 23 other drug substances, most commonly in temporally distinct clusters with heroin, etizolam, and diphenhydramine, and in a total of 182 different poly-drug combinations. Longitudinal monitoring of the number and weekly "average signal intensity" (ASI) values of identified substances, developed here as a semi-quantitative proxy indicator of changes in availability, relative purity and compositions of street level drug samples, revealed that increases in the number of identifications and ASI for β-U10 and etizolam coincided with a 50% decrease in the number of positive detections and an order of magnitude decrease in the ASI for heroin.