Chapter 14: Forensic Toxicology

Poison

A substance that has a toxic (life threatening) effect on a person.

Agonist

A drug that binds to a receptor and causes it to exert its function on the cell.

Antagonist

Drugs that may bind to a receptor but not cause it to exert the action of the cell to which the receptor is attached.

Clinical pharmacology

Which is concerned with the effects of drugs on humans.

Drug Recognition Experts

Specially trained police officers that can administer a battery of field sobriety tests to a driver.

Pharmacodynamics

Study of how drugs act in the body.

Chemical tolerance

A phenomenon whereby the bodys organ systems adapt to the drug.

Synergism

________ is easiest to detect if someone takes two drugs and has effects that would not be expected from either one of the drugs.

Acetic Acid

Used by cells for energy and forms carbon dioxide and water.

Forensic toxicologist

A scientist who works on cases where drugs are involved in death or injury.

Henrys Law

States that when a volatile substance, such as alcohol, is dissolved in a liquid, such as blood, and then that liquid is brought in contact with a closed air space, such as alveolar breath, the ratio of the concentration of alcohol in the blood and breath is a constant at a given temperature.

Drugs

A chemical or chemical mixture that is designed to have one or more physiological and /or psychological effects upon a person.

Metabolism

A process whereby a drug or other substance is chemically changed to a different but related substance, called a(n) ________.

Intoxilyzer

________ uses infrared spectroscopy for the measurement of alcohol.

Alcohol

________ is also a CNS depressant, but its mechanism of action is different from barbiturates.

urine samples

It is usually good scientific practice to use ________ to screen for the possible presence of a drug, but to use blood for determination of the concentration of the drug and for confirmation of its presence.

Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus

The subject is asked to follow with his or her eyes only, a pencil or other object as the officer moves it slowly back and forth across the subjects field of vision.

Withdrawal Syndrome

A well- defined set of physical symptoms, including high temperature, physical discomfort, pain, etc.

Pharmacokinetics

________- concerned with how drugs move into and out of the body.

Preliminary Breath Testing

Most of the PBTs work by either chemical oxidation or by fuel cell technology.

forensic toxicologist

The ________ has a number of tasks that must be accomplished in order to reach conclusions about the role of a drug in causing death.

Absorption

These include oral, intramuscular, intravenous, rectal, topical, subcutaneous, and inhalation

Distribution

Blood reaches every cell in the body and drugs are distributed via the bloodstream.

Elimination

through urine excretion; exhaled from lungs; by perspiration and respiration

Screening

A type of preliminary test for drugs in body fluids

Breath Alcohol Testing

most widely used method for alcohol testing in use today, especially given its near universal use in drunk-driving cases

Drugged Driving

driving under the influence of drugs

Drunk Driving

driving under the influence of alcohol

**Driving**

\
_______ a car means that the subject is in the driver’s seat with the engine turned on and the car in motion on a road or other surface.

**Operating**

______ a car means that the subject is in the driver’s seat and the engine is turned on but the car can be in the park—it doesn’t have to be in motion