[Opium alcaloids in toxicological medico-legal practice of Department of Forensic Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College].

Most likely, opium was the first narcotic substance discovered at the dawn of mankind. Contemporary drug abuse predominantly poses a social and clinical problem and encompasses among other aspects emergency procedures in cases of intoxication and treatment of addictions. On the other hand, this is also a problem of the judicial system, which implements the rule of apt punishment in criminal cases (rapes, robberies, drivers, production and trade in narcotic substances) and of the necessity of monitoring drug-associates deaths. In all drug-associated cases, investigative capabilities have increased with the introduction of extremely sensitive and specific analytical methods (GC-MS, LC/MS, HPLC/DAD) allowing for detection and identification of multi-component mixtures of xenobiotics found at low concentration levels in complex biological matrices. The history of the Krakow Department of Forensic Medicine dates back to the year 1877, since archival materials have been kept since that time. Isolated deaths resulting from morphine poisoning, mostly involving individuals employed in the health care sector, constituted the subject of medico-legal expert opinions starting at the beginning of the 20th century, but only the eighties did bring the need for multidirectional toxicological examinations of opiates and their metabolites in diversified biological and non-biological materials. The present report, in addition to the historical background of opiate addiction, discusses selected problems derived from published by Department reports on opiates, including cases of fatal intoxication, hair analysis of drug addicts in its various aspects, interactions in cases of poisoning and others.