Chocolate Cocaine Analysis

[BethG]

Hi there,

 

I'm required to write a made-up expert witness report concerning any topic of interest. I want to do it on the analysis of chocolate suspected of containing a foreign substance, in this case cocaine.

 

I at a bit lost as to how to do this exactly though, there are loads of articles about chocolate being laced with THC, arsenic etc. but no real information on how the analysis was carried out. This whole report has to be hypothetical so I dont have any spectra etc, but that doesn't both me so much, just how to go about starting analysis.

 

I was suggested that dissolving/slurrying the chocolate in water, adding NaOH to pH=10 to make sure the alkaloids in cocaine are in base form. Then to add diethyl ether to the micture to extarct the alkaloid. After this subject the organic layer to GC/MS? to detect and quantify the cocaine.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or extra detail. I mean if I was given a sample of chocolate to analyse how would I first determine that there was cocaine in it? I was thinking XRD or raman etc, or can I go straight into GC/MS?

 

Also how would I go about detecting the purity of the cocaine?

 

Any extra detail would be great thanks! Sorry for the long post.