PMID- 17175125
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
DCOM- 20071005
LR  - 20070813
IS  - 1872-6283 (Electronic)
IS  - 0379-0738 (Linking)
VI  - 171
IP  - 2-3
DP  - 2007 Sep 13
TI  - Factors influencing the contamination of UK banknotes with drugs of abuse.
PG  - 165-70
AB  - Bank of England banknotes sampled from different locations in the UK have been 
      analysed for the presence of cocaine, diamorphine (DAM), 
      Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). 
      A database of the contamination detected is routinely used as a benchmark against 
      which the contamination detected on seized banknotes can be compared. Evidence 
      presented at court details how banknotes seized from a suspect may differ from 
      banknotes in general circulation in terms of their contamination with controlled 
      drugs. A question arising from such evidence is whether seized banknotes could 
      have become contaminated through being in circulation in drug "hot spots". In 
      order to address this issue, a Plackett-Burman experimental design was used to 
      investigate the influence of source location and other factors on banknote 
      contamination with drugs of abuse. Banknotes were drawn from banks in eight 
      regions throughout the UK. Each location could be described by a unique 
      combination of the factors under investigation, namely whether the location was 
      rural or urban, in the North or South of the UK, and whether it was a port of 
      entry. The socio-economic class and the proportion of drug offenders in the area 
      and the denomination of the banknotes were also considered as potentially 
      influential factors. Indices were calculated to describe the degree to which 
      samples were contaminated with different drugs, and normal probability plots were 
      used to identify the factors that could account for the contamination observed. 
      Whilst some factors were more influential than others, it was shown that, at the 
      95% confidence level, none of the proposed factors were significant influences on 
      the contamination. Cocaine contamination on banknotes has been shown to follow a 
      log-normal distribution. It was, therefore, possible to calculate F- and 
      t-statistics to compare the cocaine contamination on the entire sample set with 
      that detected on a second sample set consisting of banknotes all drawn from a 
      single bank branch. It was shown that both inter-bank samples and intra-bank 
      samples had similar variance and similar contamination levels at the 95% 
      confidence level. This suggests that there are no significant regional trends in 
      the contamination of banknotes with drugs of abuse across the UK.
FAU - Ebejer, Karl A
AU  - Ebejer KA
AD  - Mass Spec Analytical Ltd., Filton, Bristol BS99 7AR, UK.
FAU - Lloyd, Gavin R
AU  - Lloyd GR
FAU - Brereton, Richard G
AU  - Brereton RG
FAU - Carter, James F
AU  - Carter JF
FAU - Sleeman, Richard
AU  - Sleeman R
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20061218
PL  - Ireland
TA  - Forensic Sci Int
JT  - Forensic science international
JID - 7902034
EDAT- 2006/12/19 09:00
MHDA- 2006/12/19 09:01
CRDT- 2006/12/19 09:00
PHST- 2006/08/11 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2006/10/24 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2006/11/07 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2006/12/19 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2006/12/19 09:01 [medline]
PHST- 2006/12/19 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S0379-0738(06)00672-4 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.forsciint.2006.11.004 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Forensic Sci Int. 2007 Sep 13;171(2-3):165-70. doi: 
      10.1016/j.forsciint.2006.11.004. Epub 2006 Dec 18.