It is estimated that annually transport accidents costs the Australian society $6.6 billion. Road accidents accounted for $6.1 billion (94%) Aviation accidents $64 million (1%) rail $94 million (1.4%) and maritime $264 million (4%) (Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics, 1992).

The analysis of drugs from drivers has been going on for many years. Most methods of sample collection are invasive ie involve either the collection of blood or urine, for road side collection of samples this is not feasible. Most drugs diffuse passively from plasma to saliva, the rate and extent to which this occurs is governed by factors such as plasma protein-binding and the pKa (which reflects the acidity or alkalinity) of the drug. Only unbound drug is available for diffusion and generally only the un-ionised (uncharged) form of the drug is the diffusible molecular species.

This research was undertaken to develop a multiple MS/MS screen for drugs in saliva. The drugs of interest have been determined by previous work of drugs in drivers using blood (Vine, Starmer et al). The saliva of 1027 drivers was collected by using an Orasure device (Diagnostic Technology), this takes approx 2 minutes and is non invasive. The sample collected is an ultrafiltrate of parotid saliva. The capabilities of MS/MS using Selected Ion Reaction Monitoring(SRM) was used because the biological matrix of saliva does yield high background levels when using Multiple Ion Monitoring (MID). The samples were worked up by solvent extraction.

The main subsets of drivers were identified as Car, Truck and Bus, the sample base used in the data is Car (N=343), Bus ( N=192) & Truck ( N=492).The main drugs of interest were the stimulants and the study indicated that Truck drivers (as in other studies) abuse the use of stimulants ie Amphetamines, Ephedrine and Phentamine and that by using GCMS/MS in the SRM mode we could easily pick up most of the drugs of interest from saliva.