Systematic identification of drugs of abuse II: TLC.

A limited number of spray reagents and solvent systems were selected or developed to separate and identify over 40 of the most commonly encountered drugs of abuse. A new reagent is reported, and new uses were developed for well-known reagents. A flowsheet for the systematic utilization of the spray reagents is given, and use of this sequence made it possible to to identify systematically an unknown drug using only two to four TLC plates, providing that the drug was one of the compounds investigated. This TLC system also can be used to complement and confirm results obtained from spot tests.