Detection of cocaine and its polar transformation products and metabolites in human urine.

This paper describes a method for the analysis of thermal degradation compounds generated from cocaine during the smoking process, together with chemical and enzymatic biotransformation products which, by virtue of their polarity, are not recovered by existing analytical procedures. The method employs cation exchange solid phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Compounds identified in urine from subjects of cocaine-related death included cocaine, benzoylecgonine, ecgonine methyl ester and ecgonine, which were measured quantitatively, and ecgonidine, ecgonidine methyl ester, ecgonine ethyl ester, ethyl benzoylecgonine, norcocaine, benzoylnorecgonine, cinnamoylcocaine, and cinnamoylecgonine. The concentrations of ecgonine (0-104 micrograms/ml) and ecgonine methyl ester (0-177 micrograms/ml) were substantial and averaged about one tenth the concentrations of benzoylecgonine (0-1074 micrograms/ml) and cocaine (0-1221 micrograms/ml). These and several of the other compounds identified will be valuable markers for cocaine use, in degraded samples and for indicating the route of administration.