1Forensic Toxicology Division, Department of Anatomy, Histology and Legal Medicine, University of Florence, Italy.
2Regional Agency Health, Tuscany, Italy.
3Centre for alcoholic, Health public corporation of Florence, Italy.
A collaborative study was performed in a period of time of 18 months in order to determine the prevalence of alcohol and other drugs (cannabinoids, opiates, cocaine, methadone and amphetamine) in 554 samples both urine and blood from people involved in vehicle crashes and admitted to an Emergency Department.
Thirty-five (6.3%) cases were positive only for alcohol, 6.1% (34 cases) of these blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was matched or exceeded the legal limit established in Italian highway code (0.5g/l). Nineteen blood samples (3.4%) result positive only for illicit drugs (cocaine, methadone, heroin and THC), while thirteen cases (2.3%) were positive both for alcohol and drugs.
These results highlight the increase of the risk of being involved in road traffic crashes using alcohol and other drugs most of all if we consider that the sample was taken no later than three hours after the accident.
Forensic toxicology, alcohol, blood alcohol concentration, illicit drugs, road crashes, drivers
