Postmortem distribution of zipeprol

The abuse of zipeprol, an antitussive agent, is prevalent among young people in Korea. For its hallucinogenic effects, abusers have taken overdoses of the drug; thus, fatalities from zipeprol overdose have risen since 1991. In order to determine the postmortem distribution of zipeprol, tissues and blood from 23 decedents who had histories of drug abuse were examined. Homogenized tissue (1 g) and 1 mL blood were extracted by ethyl acetate. Cinnarizine was used as an internal standard. A Varian GC 4600 equipped with a thermionic specific detector was used to quantitate the drug using a DB-5 megabore column, and a Finnigan GC-MS model 4021 was used to obtain mass spectral identification of the extracts. The blood zipeprol concentrations varied from 2.3 to 38.3 micrograms/mL. The highest concentration of zipeprol was found in stomach tissue. Zipeprol concentrations in tissues were higher than the corresponding blood concentrations.