Análisis químico forense del consumo de alcohol en jóvenes orenses: nivel de conocimientos, patrones de consumo y técnicas avanzadas.

Abstract

Alcohol consumption has become a worldwide problem that affects road safety and a person's motor skills and has caused a number of deaths around the world. In terms of driving, when one drinks alcoholic beverages and then drives, this will put not only the driver at risk but also passengers, pedestrians and other road users. Also, the consumption of such substance negatively affects the driving ability, i.e. the various skills and abilities essential for good driving will be affected. For this reason, severe laws have been implemented that may include fines, penalties, loss of driver's license and even imprisonment for those drivers who do not respect these regulations. Thus, in Ecuador the permitted blood alcohol level is usually between 0.03 g/L and 0.08 g/L. Similarly for the detection of this substance in the body of the person there are techniques that are of great help today as the gas chromatograph, enzymatic method, near infrared spectroscopy, microdiffusion with Conway camera and breathalyzer, the latter is the device most commonly used by the national transit agency as it helps to visualize the concentration of alcohol in the breath in a quick way in the person. Therefore, the following work is a descriptive and quantitative research since blood, urine, breath and saliva samples were collected, as well as data through random surveys conducted to young people from Orena in order to know the level of knowledge they may have after the ingestion of this substance. As for the results of the surveys conducted to the population, most of them have no knowledge about the amount of alcohol allowed, as well as rules and risks, while for the determination of alcohol in the samples and dilutions, their respective spectra analysis were performed in each one of them as well as the development of a calibration curve of ethanol, so that the result gave an R2 close to 1 which means that the data fit well to the straight line. After that, the respective analysis of the samples taken by NIR was made, resulting in the study population of group 1 did not present the presence of alcohol in the organism. As for the consumption patterns through the breathalyzer and the immunochromatographic test in group 2, they did present values outside the established range, in which the high value was 0.099% BAC and 80 mg/dL. In the professional practice as a forensic chemist is imperative and decisive in the analysis of cases with implications of legal litigation for violent deaths such as traffic accidents. Comparison of forensic chemistry techniques to identify ethanol consumption patterns shows that each method has its own reference ranges applicable to different time periods. These techniques make it possible to detect the presence of ethanol in various biological matrices, making it easier for the competent authorities to apply sanctions in accordance with articles 376 to 385 of the COIP.