Hair as the sample in assessing morphine and cocaine addiction

Abstract

Baumgartner et al. found that the hair of heroin users contains a minute amount of morphine, and that testing hair for morphine can provide useful information on previous heroin use by an addict. In their method, a sample of hair is extracted for 2 hr with hot methanol, the solvent is evaporated, and the extract is radioimmunoassayed for morphine. We are now using hair analysis routinely to assess previous drug use by heroin or cocaine addicts.