Drugs of abuse in a non-conventional sample; detection of methamphetamine and its main metabolite, amphetamine in abusers' clothes by HPLC with UV and fluorescence detection

In this paper, we report the detection of methamphetamine and its major metabolite, amphetamine, in garments belong to known-abusers. These compounds were extracted from the textile using a mixture of chloroform: propan-2-ol (3:1, v/v), derivatized with 4-(4,5-diphenyl-1H-imidazol-2-yl) benzoyl chloride and separated using a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The derivatives were detected by measuring either fluorescence at 440 nm or absorbance at 330 nm. By using 1-methyl-3-phenyl propylamine as an internal standard, calibration curves of spiked textile samples were linear over a wide range with correlation coefficients of 0.997 or better. Detection limits at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3 were less than or equal to 37.3 and 0.4 pg on column for the high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet and -fluorescence detection methods, respectively. Intra- and inter-day variations at high and low concentrations (n greater than or equal to 3) were less than or equal to 12.7%. The developed methods were successfully applied to the determination of methamphetamine and amphetamine in clothes samples belong to abusers. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.