Study of inhaled hallucinogens coming from South American plants on hair

FERRARI L. AND GIANNUZZI L.

Florencia

Congreso; The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists, TIAFT, Florencia, Italia, setiembre, 2015.; 2015

The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists, TIAFT

Introduction: Inhalation of hallucinogenic powders is an ancient practice with very peculiar socio-cultural and religious connotations that persists even today, both in the northwest Argentina and elsewhere in South America. A major source of hallucinogenic substances for inhalation are Anadenanthera spp., trees possessing psychoactive dimethyltryptamines. The aim of this work was to detect this hallucinogen or related compound in pericranial hair of two deceased natives.Material and Methods: Hair samples of 2 individuals died over a century ago were processed. The cuticle damage was firstly microscopically tested and then successively washings with dichloromethane and water were carried out at 37°C. Washing liquids were kept for futher analysis. The sample digestion was performed with 0.1 N HCl at 50ºC for 24 hours and then filtered. The extract was processed by SPE (Bond Elut C-18), taken up with 500 μL of methanol.The extracts were injected into a Shimadzu GC 17 -QP 5000 (GC-MS). HP-DB5 column (0.25 mm x 60 m). Carrier: 0.7 ml / min. Ti 50°C - 120°C grad.30°C / min and from 120°C to 250°C grad. 15°C/min. T inj. 260°C/min. Split ratio: 8, IS: trypatmine 1 ng/µl. External standard was used. LOD and LOQ were 0.1 ng/mg and 0.4 ng/mg.Results and discussion: Microscopic hair examination showed no cuticle damage. 5-methoxy dimetiltriptamine (5MeO-DMT) was detected in retention time (tr): 6.25 min (15.0 ng / mg hair) IS: tr 7.36 min. The washings showed no signals attributable to the 5MeO-DMT.Conclusion: The 5MeO-DMT is a good indicator of consumption of hallucinogens from Anadanthera spp. Future studies are required to investigate other biomarkers for compounds consumption.