Isotope Profiling of Drugs: A Tool to Disrupt Organised Crime, Detect Serious Crime and Reduce Volume Crime

This project supported the development of IRMS as a supportive measure for use in the determination of synthetic route linkage between MDMA samples.

The determination of which clandestine route was used to illegally prepare a particular drug is of interest to law enforcement particularly in the generation of police and organised crime intelligence. This work provided a scientific basis for the inclusion of IRMS as a supportive analytical tool in this activity.

IRMS could be used in route discrimination at a macro analytical level, that is it can distinguish between MDMA samples prepared from different synthetic methods. The technique cannot differentiate samples between batches of materials prepared from the same materials and as such cannot provide source information on its own