Use of cocaine during the immediate prepartum period by childbearing women in Ohio

Despite widespread concern about exposure of infants in utero to cocaine, population-based data regarding the prevalence of such exposures are limited. An official task force in Ohio called for studies to generate such data for that state. During three weeks in late 1990, urine was obtained within 48 hours of birth from 1,819 infants born in 25 Ohio hospitals randomly selected from a pool of hospitals accounting for over 80% of Ohio births. Maternal age, race/ethnicity, and residence information were collected so that results could not be linked to individual mothers or infants. Urines were screened for benzoylecgonine (BZE), a cocaine metabolite, using a commercially available immunoassay. The crude prevalence of BZE positivity was 2.0%. When adjusted for unequal cluster sizes and race/ethnicity, the prevalence was 1.4%. The adjusted prevalence for infants born to black mothers was 7.2%, for infants born to white mothers, 0.3%. Ninety-seven percent of the mothers whose infants tested positive were residents of a city of 20,000 or more people. The use of hospital maternity units as a basis for anonymous sampling, as demonstrated in this study, may be a useful model for other jurisdictions seeking population-based data concerning perinatal drug exposures. Such methods may be especially useful for trend studies and program evaluation. In this study, we found widely distributed prepartal cocaine usage in Ohio. Black newborns were significantly more likely than white newborns to show evidence of recent cocaine exposure.

An investigation of Sophora secundiflora seeds (Mescalbeans)

The seeds of Sophora secundiflora (mescalbeans) have been purported to have hallucinogenic activity because of their past use in certain Native American ceremonies during which visions were experienced by those consuming the seeds. Chemical analysis of mescalbeans revealed the absence of detectable amounts of tryptamine derivatives; however, two additional quinolizidine alkaloids, epi-lupinine and delta5-dehydrolupanine, were isolated. Thus far, seven quinolizidine alkaloids have been detected in mescalbeans and quantitation of these constituents showed that the major alkaloid present is cytisine (o.25%). The toxicity of mescalbeans in mice (oral LD50 1.4 g/kg) is only partially attributable to the known alkaloid content. In addition, the ethnobotanical reports regarding the Native American use of mescalbeans were reviewed. No unequivocal evidence was found in this study to support the proposal that mescalbeans are hallucinogenic.