Monday, August 8, 2011

Need help with reading toxicology report?

For the alcohol it means that the person was highly intoxicated (3x the legal definition for intoxicated driving in the US) but also that alcohol was probably consumed over the course of many hours and not just before death as the vitreous and blood are in close equilibrium. The overwhelming majority of drinkers will look "drunk" by casual observation at this BAC. The drug screen shows two tranquilizers: diazepam (e.g. Valium) a metabolite or break-down product of diazepam and alprazolam (Xanax). Alprazolam is very closely related to diazepam but they are separate drugs. The combination of alcohol and tranquilizers is a particularly dangerous combination but probably in the range that it would be fatal in most cases I have seen. The concentrations are diazepam and alprazolam are very low. These values overall are also probably not totally reflective of alcohol or drug use and may be slightly higher or lower than what was reported. Alcohol values can change depending on how long the victiim was in the water and whether it was salt of fresh water and the other drugs very in concentration after death (known as post mortem redistribution).

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