The Identification of Drugs of Abuse in Urine Using Reverse Phase High Pressure Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A rapid, isocratic HPLC procedure for the identification of drugs of abuse in urine is described. The procedure utilizes a reverse phase μC₁₈ column, a methanol/water mobile phase, buffered to pH 7.5, and a UV detector operating at 254 nm. Using indole as an external standard, 13 common drugs of abuse can be differentiated in less than 15 minutes. Nine different drugs of abuse were identified in actual drug screen urine samples, confirming TLC results. Reproducibility and quantitative capabilities of this method were also demonstrated. Due to apparent interferences from drug metabolites this method must at present be used in conjunction with another established method such as TLC or GC for positive drug identification.