Ecgonidine

Ecgonidine (anhydroecgonine) is an alkaloid related to ecgonine and cocaine.

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Methylecgonidine is produced by pyrolysis in the process of smoking crack cocaine, and then subsequently metabolised to ecgonidine, and so these two compounds can be tested for as a specific biomarker for crack cocaine use.^[1] Ecgonidine is formed as a metabolite of methylecgonidine, and so the relative concentrations of the two compounds can be used to gauge how recently crack cocaine was smoked; if levels of methylecgonidine are higher then the drug was smoked recently, however after a longer time period mainly ecgonidine will be present.^[2] Ecgonidine has a half-life in the body of around 94-137 minutes, and so can be used to detect use of crack cocaine up to 8-10 hours after the drug is consumed.

References

1. ^ Scheidweiler KB, Shojaie J, Plessinger MA, Wood RW, Kwong TC. Stability of methylecgonidine and ecgonidine in sheep plasma in vitro. Clinical Chemistry. 2000 Nov;46(11):1787-95.
2. ^ Paul BD, McWhorter LK, Smith ML. Electron ionization mass fragmentometric detection of urinary ecgonidine, a hydrolytic product of methylecgonidine, as an indicator of smoking cocaine. Journal of Mass Spectrometry. 1999 Jun;34(6):651-60.