Evaluation of spectroscopic techniques for on-site drug testing of festival seizures

Despite the fact that drugs of abuse are illegal, a drug-free festival still remains an utopia in most settings. For law enforcement purposes, it is necessary to rapidly determine whether controlled substances are involved. On-site testing is a challenging task because drugs appear in different physical forms and concentrations. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of two spectroscopic techniques, Raman and Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR), for the testing of drug seizures at a dance festival. First, samples were measured through packaging with Raman. Subsequently, homogenized samples were analysed with FT-IR. For MDMA tablets, a chemometric model was applied on the FT-IR spectra for the dose estimation. After the festival, results were confirmed in the forensic laboratory with gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID). In total, 166 samples of which 90 tablets, 53 powders, 16 crystals and 7 liquids were analysed. MDMA, cocaine and ketamine were the top three drugs seized. The Raman technique was suitable for powders and crystals (sensitivity of 100% and 81%, respectively). However, in comparison with FT-IR, Raman performance was lower for the analysis of liquids (sensitivity of 67%) and 'ecstasy'-like tablets (sensitivity of 41%). Overall, sensitivities above 95% were obtained with FT-IR. The MDMA doses of the tablets, determined on-site, ranged between 52 mg and 336 mg MDMA hydrochloride. For a quick identification of a variety of drugs on-site, the combination of Raman and FT-IR is recommended. It should be emphasized that optimized settings, in-house libraries and analysis by trained operators are essential to obtain correct results.