Classes of Drugs
These substances slow down the functions of the central nervous system, calming anxiety and causing sleep.
What are depressants?
The name for a test that is nonspecific and preliminary in nature.
What is a screening test?
The organ where alcohol is metabolized.
What is the liver?
The most common poison encountered, it combines with hemoglobin in red blood cells and prevents oxygen from being carried to tissues.
What is carbon monoxide?
This widely used illegal stimulant surprisingly does not lead to physical dependency.
What is cocaine?
This class of drugs, which includes methamphetamine, speeds up the central nervous system.
What are stimulants?
This hyphenated technique fulfills SWGDRUG requirements by allowing for both separation and specific identification of a questioned mixture of suspected drugs.
What is GC-MS?
The first stage of metabolism (80% occurs in the small intestine).
What is absorption?
The drug of choice for Joann Curley when she slowly poisoned her husband by drugging his thermos.
What is thallium (rat poison)?
A drug used to treat heroin addiction.
What is methadone?
LSD and PCP fall into this class of drug.
What are hallucinogens?
A purple color when adding the Marquis reagent indicates a presumptive positive for this drug.
What is heroin?
The second phase of metabolism, where alcohol becomes uniform in the watery portions of the body.
What is distribution?
A type of toxicology screening test, it relies on specific reactions between drugs and antibodies.
What are immunoassays?
This is added to drawn blood to prevent clotting.
What is an anticoagulant?
These drugs are taken in an attempt to grow muscle, while limiting androgenic effects of testosterone.
What are anabolic steroids?
This type of spectrophotometry is a category A technique because its absorption spectrum is equivalent to a "chemical fingerprint" (too bad the sample has to be pure!)
What is IR spectroscopy?
The two ways our body eliminates alcohol.
What is oxidation and excretion?
What is a drug recognition expert (DRE)?
The original Breathalyzer relied on a color change when alcohol reacted with this reagent.
What is potassium dichromate?
These come from the khat plant and can cause severe agitation and violent behavior (watch out Florida!).
What are bath salts?
Adding platinum chloride to suspected cocaine and viewing the precipitate formed under a microscope is an example of this test.
What is a microcrystalline test?
Tiny pear-shaped sacs in our lungs where the exchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and alcohol occurs.
What are alveoli?
A test used to detect heavy metal poisoning, it looks for a silvery color on a copper strip that has been immersed in body fluids.
What is the Reinsch test?
A potent form of marijuana cultivated by removing male plants from the field and harvesting the unfertilized flowering tops of the female plant.
What is sinsemilla?