ECSTASY AND DESIGNER AMPHETAMINES - FINDINGS IN DRIVERS AND POST-MORTEM CASES IN DENMARK

Recently there has been a strong public interest as well as politically on the abuse of ecstasy in Denmark. The Department of Forensic Chemistry performs the toxicological analysis on the driving and criminal cases in Denmark and the post-mortem cases of East Denmark requested by the police. Screening for amphetamines and ecstasy is performed by RIA (amphetamine double antibody DPC) and confirmation and quantification by GC/MS analysis. In recent years there has been a change in the number of samples tested positive for designer amphetamines including MDMA (ecstasy), MDA, MDEA etc. The first two positive cases of designer ampetamines among 213 traffic cases requested for analysis by the police were detected in 1997 (2/213 ???0,9%). In 1999 4 cases were found, in 2000 were 9 cases observed and in 2001 were 6 positive cases among 201 analysed traffic cases. In these cases the dominating compound was MDMA followed by MDA. A few positive cases of MDEA were also observed and always in mixture with MDA and/or MDMA. The whole blood concentration ranged from 0,03 to 1,1 mg/kg (fatal level) with a mean value of 0,35 mg/kg and a median of 0,23 mg/kg. The high incidence of MDA in MDMA positive cases and the fact that the concentration of MDA was about 1/10 of the concentration of MDMA in these cases indicate MDAs nature as a metabolite in MDMA consumption. Additional drugs were found in the blood in many of the cases such as THC, cocaine metabolite and benzodiazepines. In the last 7 years the number of traffic cases for forensic investigations was about 200 per year and the percent of amphetamine positive cases was between 10-15%. This indicates an increase in the total number of phenylamine positive cases in Denmark due to ecstasy. A similar increase has been observed among the post-mortem cases in Denmark. By now there are registered a total of 6 fatal cases of designer amphetamines involving MDMA and/or PMA/PMMA (paramethoxyamphetamine / paramethoxymetamphetamine). One fatal case of MDMA was found in 1998 and five fatal cases of MDMA and/or PMA/PMMA in 2000. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see ITRD Abstract No. E201067.