The opioid crisis has continued to intensify over the last few decades, which may have contributed to the increase in reported drug seizures. Most seized drug samples are complex mixtures of drugs and cutting agents, which can complicate the detection and quantification of the illicit drugs in the sample. The presence of these cutting agents can, however, be beneficial for source tracing purposes as the majority of cutting agents are selected based on availability in the area where the bulk drug was prepared. Our goal is to electrochemically characterize most of the common cutting agents found in illicit drugs, such as diphenhydramine, paracetamol, ascorbic acid, and caffeine. To date, we have characterized fifteen common cutting agents using cyclic voltammetry (CV). We have also optimized their detection using square wave voltammetry (SWV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), as these methods can be more sensitive than CV and better suited for quantification purposes. Some chemical species, such as calcium carbonate, can alter the pH of the tested sample and thus impact the measurement of the redox activity of some cutting agents. As an example, a pH study was carried out on the pH-sensitive cutting agent ascorbic acid and highlighted the shift in peak potential as the pH of solution was increased. Additionally, the choice and composition of the supporting electrolyte can affect the observation of the redox peaks of the analytes. With this in mind, the choice of supporting electrolyte for the detection of caffeine was explored by testing sulfuric acid, and different chloride salts with sulfuric and hydrochloric acids. The next steps of the project is to perform analyses of mixtures of cutting agents, and to test mixtures with fentanyl and other currently relevant drugs. The long-term goal is to establish the milestone of an extensive database of electrochemical characterizations of cutting agents encountered in street-seized drug samples to help expand the developing field of forensic electrochemical analyses.

Electrochemical characterization of common cutting agents in illicit drugs

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