Influence of thermal hair straightening on cannabis and cocaine content in hair

Abstract

It has been shown that cosmetic treatment like bleaching and perming may lead to an important decrease of drugs of abuse content in hair. Currently, hair straightening has become a regular hair treatment especially for women. The aim of this preliminary study was to investigate the effect of in vitro treatment of hair with heat straightener on cannabis and cocaine concentrations in hair.17 positive cannabis and 7 positive cocaine hair samples were treated in vitro with a hair straightener. During this treatment hair was put sequentially 30 times in contact with heated iron plates at 200°C during 2s corresponding to a total time of contact of 1min. THC and Cannabinol (CBN) were analysed in cannabis positive hair and cocaine, benzoylecgonin (BZE) and cocaethylene were analysed in cocaine positive hair. Analyses were performed with routine methods using GC/MS in electron impact mode.Regarding cannabis results a decrease of THC concentrations was found in 11 of 17 hair samples after thermal treatment, whereas in 6 cases an increase was shown. In all the hair samples CBN concentrations was explicitly higher after the in vitro treatment. Regarding cocaine results cocaine and cocaethylene concentrations decreased after treatment in all seven hair samples; in contrast, higher concentrations of BZE were determined.The strong increase of CBN and BZE content in hair after thermal treatments may be due to the fact that THC is converted by heat into CBN and cocaine into BZE, thus changing the respective ratios of the analysed substances. In conclusion, thermal straightening should be considered as other cosmetic hair treatments for a correct interpretation of hair results.