Simultaneous determination of psychoactive compounds in foodstuffs using micellar liquid chromatography with direct injection.

Amicellar liquid chromatographic procedure was developed for the simultaneous determination of three commonly used stupefacients, lidocaine, ketamine and diazepam, using a C18 reversed-phase column. A micellar mobile phase 0.15 M sodium dodecyl sulfate and 6% (v/v) pentanol, pH 7, and UV detection at 230 nm were used to determine the three stupefacients in food samples. Using the selected mobile phase, the stupefacients were eluted in less than 10 min with linearity (r = 0.998), LOD (range: 0.004-0.03 ppm), LOQ (range: 0.004-0.03 ppm), intraday and interday precision (below 2.84%), and mean recoveries (range: 79.11-110.16%) in the different foodstuffs were in accordance with the internationally established acceptance criteria. Validation of the developed method was performed on the basis of International Conference on Harmonization validation guidelines. The optimized and validated micellar liquid chromatographic method was successfully applied in the determination of lidocaine, diazepam, and ketamine in a real food sample (mango drink) and in spiked food samples (banana, ladoo, soft drink, tea). The developed method could also be easily used by law enforcement laboratories and hospitals for routine analysis.