Toxicology Flashcards
What is included in the job of a forensic toxicologist?
The job of a forensic toxicologist includes examining effects of a harmful substance on the body, determining how much/ what substances are present, determining how long it has been in someone’s body and considering how this harmful substance gets into someone’s body?
What types of body fluids are tested?
Blood, obtaining blood samples may be intrusive and even expensive, but it is considered as the most accurate method compared to testing other body fluids.
What are the routes of exposure?
Inhalation, ingestion, absorption, injection.
What are people commonly poisoned with?
Alcohol
At what BAC is someone legally intoxicated?
.08 BAC as the legal measure of intoxication for driving and for commercial truck drivers and bus drivers it is .047.
How does alcohol enter the bloodstream? What might affect the rate at which alcohol enters the bloodstream?
Alcohol is absorbed through the bloodstream from the stomach and (mostly) small intestine. The food you eat or have eaten can affect this, mostly by the dose of ethanol ingested and rate of consumption.
Other factors contributing to BAC are gender, body mass and composition, food effects, type of alcohol, and chronic alcohol exposure.
What happens once the alcohol enters the bloodstream (where does it go)?
Once it enters the bloodstream it goes through three stages. After absorption through the bloodstream, stomach, and small intestine, it is distributed evenly through watery portions of the body, and then eliminated when liver enzymes metabolize alcohol into a less toxic substance.
What are some of alcohol’s effects as BAC increases?
Feeling of well-being, relaxation, lower inhibitions, and sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of judgment and memory, lowering of caution. Slight impairment of balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing. When BAC reaches high levels, blackouts (gaps in memory), loss of consciousness, and death can occur.
What is done if someone is pulled over for suspected impaired driving?
Preliminary tests are performed to determine if evidentiary tests are necessary. These tests include, horizontal gaze nystagmus, walk and turn, and one let stand.
What is the relationship between the concentration of alcohol affecting the brain and the concentration elsewhere in the body (like blood or breath)? So what does this mean for collection of samples for testing?
For blood testing, they use a nonalcoholic disinfectant and anticoagulants and preservatives are added for refrigeration. Then post mortem blood is collected from multiple sites, heart, arteries in leg, and arm. The alcohol testing in breath indirectly determines the amount of alcohol, then they can use infrared absorption (like spectrophotometer), and fuel cell analysers which in field measurement of blood alcohol was used to evaluate a small pocket size blood alcohol analyser whose function is based on the fuel cell principle.
What are the different types of dependence?
Psychological dependence which is when an intense craving for drugs occurs and physiological dependence where drugs produce physiological changes that encourage further use.
How are drug schedules determined? Which schedule is the most restricted?
5 Schedules of drugs, federal law recognizes the 5 schedules of drugs based on accepted medical use and their abuse or dependence potential. (Controlled Substance Act)
Schedule I drugs are the most restricted and cannot be prescribed at all, because they have a high potential for abuse
How do hallucinogens effect the body?
Hallucinogens, causes marked alterations in normal functions these include; marijuana, LSD, MDMA.
How do narcotics effect the body?
Narcotics, used for relief of pain and sleep, analgesics, relieves pain by depressing central nervous system receptors. Source is opium (morphine) and also man-made opioids (oxycodone).
How do depressants effect the body?
Depressants depresses the central nervous system and calms anxiety and induces sleep, these include alcohol, barbiturates and inhalants.
