Amphetamine Abuse Amongst Psychiatric In-Patients: The Use of Gas Chromatography

Gas chromatography for amphetamine substances in the urine, though both expensive and time-consuming, provides for the specific detection of amphetamine and many other drugs in the microgram and submicrogram quantities.

Abstract

Amphetamine psychosis and severe amphetamine dependence are now well recognized clinical pictures leading to psychiatric in-patient treatment (Connell, 1964). These pictures, however, are probably seen in only a small proportion of those who take amphetamines. The true assessment of the total incidence of unprescribed amphetamine taking in any group is made difficult by the absence of specific clinical signs (Connell, 1966), denial of drug-taking by the patient (Scott and Willcox, 1965) and the large number of false positives found with the methyl orange screening test (Johnson and Milner, 1966). Gas chromatography for amphetamine substances in the urine (Rowland and Beckett, 1965), though both expensive and time-consuming, provides for the specific detection of amphetamine and many other drugs in the microgram and submicrogram quantities. This paper describes the use of the method to obtain a picture of amphetamine abuse amongst patients in a 20-bedded acute psychiatric ward in a Teaching Hospital.