Heroin is an illegal drug that is synthesized by the acetylation of morphine at high temperatures. Heroin is often smoked, or dissolved using acid and injected into the bloodstream. After heroin is injected, it crosses the blood-brain barrier in under 20 s. Heroin rapidly hydrolyses in the blood to 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-AM) and then further hydrolyses to morphine (M), having a half-life of 2 – 5 min. Recently, heroin confiscated from the streets has been found to be diluted using other pharmaceutical drugs such as Tramadol (Tr). Tr is a prescription used to treat severe chronic pain. Street drugs are always evolving and new methods for detecting these drugs are always needed. We hypothesize that pH affects the decomposition of heroin and aim to determine if non-ideal blood settings alter the breakdown of the heroin using high performance liquid chromatography. Another portion of our research studies how the heroin alters the protein within blood through protein quantification and SDS-Page analysis. We hope to see a linear trend regarding the degradation of the protein. The amount of protein should not change, but the protein itself may breakdown into smaller fragments, which would show up on the SDS-Page analysis. If this study proves successful, it could be used in the future to aid in forensic toxicological analysis.

Using HPLC to determine the effects of pH on the decomposition of heroin in the blood

251st National Meeting (2016)

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