High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Analysis of Drugs of Abuse in Biologic Samples

Recently, drug abuse has become a serious social problem world wide. In Japan, methamphetamine (MP) is the most popular drug of abuse. In addition to MP, the use of 4,5-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), called ecstacy, is rapidly increasing, especially among young people. The development of simple and convenient analytical methods for the analysis of these drugs of abuse is necessary for the prediction of and protection from human health risks. Many useful methods have been developed for qualification and quantification of drugs of abuse. Among these, gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography with MS (HPLC-MS or LC-MS) or fluorescence (HPLC-FL) detection are widely used. As highly sensitive methods, precolumn or postcolumn derivatization methods are commonly utilized in HPLC. This review focuses on HPLC methods used for the practical analysis of drugs of abuse, mainly for amphetamine derivatives and MDMAs in biologic samples such as urine, blood, and hair