Testing for zopiclone in hair application to drug-facilitated crimes

Abstract

The use of a drug to modify a person's behaviour for criminal gain is not a recent phenomenon. However, the recent increase in reports of drug-facilitated crimes (sexual assault, robbery) has caused alarm in the general public. The drugs involved can be difficult to detect due to low dosages or chemical instability. They possess amnesic properties and can be quickly cleared from the body fluids. In these situations, blood or even urine can be of poor interest. This is the reason why this laboratory developed an original approach based on hair testing by LC-MS/MS. Zopiclone (Imovane), due to its short half-life associated with rapid hypnotic activity, is considered as a compound of choice to sedate victims. To document the detection of zopiclone in hair, we first tested specimens obtained from two volunteers who had ingested a single 7.5 mg Imovane tablet, and from repetitive consumers of zopiclone. After pH 8.4 buffer incubation and extraction with methylene chloride/diethyl ether (80/20 (v/v)), hair extracts were separated on a Xterra MS C18 column using a gradient of acetonitrile and formate buffer. Zopiclone and diazepam-d5, used as internal standard, were detected by tandem mass spectrometry. A single exposure to zopiclone was detectable in the first hair segment of two volunteers at concentration of 5.4 and 9.0 pg/mg, respectively. Hair from repetitive consumers tested positive for zopiclone at concentrations of 37 and 66 pg/mg. Hair analysis was applied to two authentic criminal cases. In the first one, zopiclone tested positive in the corresponding hair segment at 4.2 pg/mg, in accordance with a single exposure to the drug. In the other expertise, zopiclone was detected in the two segments analyzed, at 21.3 and 21.5 pg/mg, making unlikely the hypothetical single exposure to zopiclone.