Confirmation of cocaine in human saliva after intravenous use.

The presence of cocaine was confirmed in the saliva of two male human subjects who had received intravenous doses of cocaine. For one subject, the saliva:plasma concentration ratios varied from 2.96 to 0.5 over time following drug administration. Correlations of saliva to plasma cocaine levels were highly significant (p less than 0.001) across doses of 15, 20, and 40 mg of intravenously administered cocaine. These findings are important in that they allow monitoring blood levels of cocaine after intravenous infusion in a non-invasive manner, and could form the basis for development of a non-invasive screen for active cocaine levels in saliva.