DOI: https://doi.org/10.55373/mjchem.v26i5.488

Keywords: ATS drug; drug abusers; hair samples; GC-FID; LOD; LOQ

Abstract

Hair has become a fundamental biological sample, as an alternative to the common samples of blood and urine for drug testing. Chemicals from drugs will move from the bloodstream into the follicle base and bind to the growing hair cells. Once the drugs are incorporated into hair, they will remain with high stability in hair allowing the detection of drugs up to several months after intake. The objective of this study is to determine the presence of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) drugs from the hair samples and to validate the method of ATS drug analysis in hair samples of drug abusers by using Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). In this study, hair samples from 97 male drug abusers were collected from Narcotic Addiction Relief Centre in Sabah and Rehabilitation Centre in Johor. The ATS drugs in the hair samples were analysed by using alkaline digestion method with GC-FID instrumentation. Method for hair analysis were successfully analyzed and validated with the assessment of the following parameters: linearity of calibration curve, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ). The results revealed that AMP analyte was the most detected ATS drug in hair, followed by MAMP, MDEA, MBDB, MDA and MDMA. MAMP analyte showed the lowest LOD and LOQ values which were 0.0394 ppm and 0.1195 ppm respectively. Meanwhile the highest LOD and LOQ was from MDEA analyte with the value of 0.1316 ppm and 0.3989 ppm respectively. The method of alkaline digestion was successfully applied for the quantification of ATS drugs in hair samples of drug abusers. Therefore, hair also can be used as a biological specimen in drugs of abuse procedure in workplace drug testing, drug rehabilitation and treatment centres and in forensic investigation of drug-related crime and fatalities.