National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA.
J Forensic Sci. 2023 Sep;68(5):1708-1712. doi: 10.1111/1556-4029.15242. Epub 2023 Mar 26.
Public health, public safety, and forensic science personnel continue to face the emergence of new compounds into the drug market. While focus is often put on the detection of new analogs of known illicit drugs, monitoring the changes in cutting agents and other compounds can be equally as important. Over the last year, near real-time monitoring of the drug supply in Maryland has been completed through a public health-public safety partnership whereby residue from suspected drug packaging or used paraphernalia is collected and analyzed. Through this project, we have recently detected the presence of the veterinary sedative medetomidine in a small number of samples. The presence of medetomidine has been identified in both public health and law enforcement samples and in the presence of fentanyl and xylazine-another veterinary sedative that has been widely observed over the last year. While the rate at which medetomidine has been detected remains low, it is concerning and worthy of continued monitoring.
公共卫生、公共安全和法医学人员继续面临新化合物进入毒品市场的情况。虽然重点通常放在检测已知非法药物的新类似物上，但监测切割剂和其他化合物的变化同样重要。在过去的一年里，通过公共卫生-公共安全合作关系，马里兰州已经完成了对毒品供应的近乎实时监测，方法是收集和分析疑似毒品包装或使用工具的残留物。通过这个项目，我们最近在少数样本中检测到了兽医镇静剂美托咪定的存在。美托咪定已在公共卫生和执法样本中被发现，同时还存在芬太尼和唑拉西泮——另一种在过去一年中广泛观察到的兽医镇静剂。虽然美托咪定的检测率仍然很低，但这令人担忧，值得继续监测。
