Browse the latest forensic toxicology articles or search the collection.
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Does Methamphetamine-Associated Cardiomyopathy Always Recover With Abstinence?
A historical cardiovascular review describes variable recovery linked to cardiac structure and disease pattern. Improvement in selected patients is not a universal prognosis.
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Why a 50:50 Methamphetamine Dose Did Not Produce 50:50 Urinary Metabolites
A twelve-man crossover experiment showed stereoselective urinary recovery. A metabolite’s isomer proportions need not reproduce the proportions administered.
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Why Wastewater Methamphetamine Loads Are Not Counts of People Using the Drug
A 2011–2017 international study measured mass entering sewers. Converting those loads into users, doses or illicit consumption requires additional assumptions.
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Methamphetamine Withdrawal: Why Craving and Depressive Symptoms Followed Different Timelines
A monitored abstinence study found that average symptoms and craving changed differently. Its group timelines are not a deadline for individual recovery.
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What Did “Persistent Psychotic Symptoms” Mean in a Methamphetamine Follow-Up Study?
The study’s persistent-symptom category used four noncontiguous observation months. Its 16% figure was not a community prevalence or proof of uninterrupted psychosis.
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Can a Hydroxylated Methamphetamine Metabolite Resolve Postmortem Hair Contamination?
Quantifying para-hydroxy-methylamphetamine improved analytical information in 63 autopsy cases, but did not validate a standalone marker of drug incorporation during hair growth.
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Does More Methamphetamine in Hair Necessarily Mean a Higher Dose?
A controlled seven-volunteer experiment found dose-related hair concentrations within people alongside large differences between people receiving the same doses.
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Blood THC With Negative Urine THCCOOH: Can It Date Cannabis Use After Death?
A Quebec case database found blood THC without urinary THCCOOH more often after death. The pattern warrants investigation, rather than an automatic conclusion of very recent use.
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Co-Detected Drugs Can Have Different Postmortem Distributions
Four detailed overdose cases show why the distribution of one drug cannot stand in for another, even when both are measured in the same body.
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Can Ethanol Fall During Blood Putrefaction? A 24-Specimen Experiment
Warm-incubation experiments showed ethanol losses as well as increases. A later concentration reflects net change and cannot automatically reconstruct the original result.
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Does Acetaldehyde Above 0.14 mg/mL Prove Postmortem Ethanol Formation?
A proposed acetaldehyde threshold can prompt investigation of postmortem change, but it is not a validated diagnostic boundary or a way to subtract microbial ethanol.
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Vitreous Ethanol Can Be Below Blood: What 31 Paired Autopsy Cases Show
A 31-case study found strong blood–vitreous ethanol correlation, but individual results disagreed. Collection details, analytical limits and a printed ratio inconsistency qualify interpretation.
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Does Early Adversity Explain Later Behavior After Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure?
A 7.5-year IDEAL analysis found a statistical indirect pathway for externalizing behavior. Mediation does not allocate an individual child’s problems between drug and environment.
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What Changed During the First Month in Methamphetamine-Exposed Newborns?
A 380-infant IDEAL analysis distinguished maturation, exposure effects and changing arousal and stress scores over the first month.
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Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure: A Grasping Difference Is Not a Global Cognitive Deficit
The IDEAL follow-up separated a narrow grasping finding from null broad developmental scores and from a nonsignificant exposure-by-age interaction.
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Why Exposure Timing Changes a Methamphetamine Pregnancy Comparison
A Honolulu cohort found different birth-weight comparisons depending on exposure timing and the control group. Observational associations do not isolate a drug effect.
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What Death-Certificate Codes Can Show About Methamphetamine and Opioid Co-Involvement
A 1999–2021 mortality analysis used coded drug categories. Its co-involvement estimates do not identify intentional mixing, contamination or an individual toxic mechanism.
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Methamphetamine Use, Use Disorder and Treatment Receipt: Three Different Survey Denominators
Historical household-survey estimates distinguish past-year use from survey-defined disorder and treatment receipt; none is a toxicology-confirmed impairment rate.
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Why a Methamphetamine Treatment Evidence Map Is Not a League Table
A 2023 scoping review counted 54 studies in 69 publications. Its direction-of-effect maps cannot rank treatments by proven benefit.
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Can Medication Adherence Rescue a Negative Bupropion Trial for Methamphetamine Use?
In 204 non-daily users, bupropion did not improve terminal abstinence. Low adherence limits inference but does not establish an unobserved medication benefit.