Hair analysis of drugs of abuse

Abstract

The abuse of drugs is increasing and causing serious social problems world wide. The development and application of analytical methods of drugs of abuse are very important for the prediction of and protection from the risk to human health. On the other hand, analyses of biological samples, such as blood and urine are requisite to elucidate the use of drugs. Among the biological matrices, hair is valuable and includes intake information of the drug for a long period. Because the history of hair analysis is relatively new, along with the development of analytical instruments, practical and valuable methods for analysis of drugs of abuse have been developed. Now, these methods have been utilized in such fields as forensic science and clinical chemistry. In this review, the history and significance of hair analysis are discussed, and recently reported application cases are introduced. © 2008 The Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry.