Researchers  at  McMaster University have developed a new drug screening technique that 

could  lead  to  the rapid and accurate identification of fentanyl, as well as a vast number of 

other drugs of abuse, which up until now have been difficult to detect by traditional urine tes

ts.

The method, outlined in the current edition of the journal Analytical Chemistry, addresses a 

serious  public  health  emergency  related  to  opioid addiction and unintentional overdose 

deaths: the lack of a reliable and inexpensive test that allows for comprehensive surveillanc

e of synthetic drugs flooding the illegal market.

The new method would eliminate a two-stage process currently in use for drug monitoring b

y allowing technicians to run many tests at once in a high throughput manner—dramatically 

cutting  processing  time  while  improving screening accuracy with quality assurance. 

Importantly, this mass spectrometric method can also screen for a wider range of drugs of 

abuse, as well as identify designer drugs that elude conventional tests.

New technologies are urgently needed, given a worldwide epidemic of prescription and illicit 

drug abuse and its devastating impacts on public health. According to a recent report by the 

United  Nations  Office on Drugs and Crime approximately 35 million people worldwide used 

opioid  drugs  in  the  year 2014. In 2016, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported an 

estimated 2,800 people died of opioid overdoses alone. It expects that number to rise to at 

least 3,000 in 2017.