Journal Published Online: 01 November 1988
Volume 33, Issue 6

Incidence of Cannabinoids in Medical Examiner Urine Specimens

CODEN: JFSCAS

Abstract

Cannabinoid use was studied in a nonspecific population of postmortem urine specimens in the State of Maryland. Of 500 sequential specimens screened for cannabinoids by enzyme multiplied immunoassay EMIT®, 63 (13%) were initially positive and 58 (12%) were confirmed positive (92%). It was observed that geographic location and race did not correlate with cannabinoid prevalence. Cannabinoid use was observed to be strongly age related, with peak use by the 21- to 25-year-old age group where 22% of the cases were positive. Use of cannabinoids was also closely linked to homicides, which represented nearly half of the positive cases but only 13% of the total cases. When comparing manner of death, the greatest percent of confirmed positives was seen in homicide (26%) and drug-related (17%) deaths. The incidence of cannabinoid use was found to be more than 3 times as great in drug-related (17%) as compared to natural deaths (5%). The percent of cannabinoid-positive cases from vehicle-related accidents was low (6%) and that from nonvehicle-related accidents somewhat higher (10%).

Other drugs appeared in cannabinoid-positive cases. Most prevalent was ethanol N = 18, followed by morphine (from heroin, N = 11), quinine N = 11, and cocaine N = 11. Phencyclidine (PCP) occurred twice and several other drugs were reported only once. Of the 25 homicide cases screened for drugs, 64% were positive for some drug including ethyl alcohol. Thus it appears that a high percentage of homicide cases are drug related. Males greatly outnumbered females (56:2) in positive cases, but the number of female specimens received was small.

Author Information

Isenschmid, DS
University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore, MD
Caplan, YH
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, MD
Pages: 11
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Stock #: JFS12586J
ISSN: 0022-1198
DOI: 10.1520/JFS12586J