The Development of an LC-MS/MS method for the quantitation of drugs of abuse with blood collection cards for drug enforcement applications

Law enforcement of driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) is difficult for police because there is no easy method to collect samples for Δ9-THC intoxication at the scene of an accident or police
stop. We developed an analysis method for microblood and microplasma collection cards for Δ9-THC, cocaine metabolites, ketamine, and psilocin. With this method, a drop of blood can be sampled from a suspect by law enforcement at the scene of an incident, and analyzed later with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). A comparison between commercial microplasma and micro-blood collection devices will be made. The range of the method is 2 to 200 ng/mL of plasma or blood for THC and metabolites which is adequate for the
recommended per se level of 5 ng/mL for Δ9-THC. A batch of samples could be analyzed in the lab within one hour after arrival but the samples can be stored at room temperature for days
before analysis.