Sample Homework Problem3

A woman (weighing 120 lb) was found dead in her bed with an empty bottle of codeine (60 mg tablets) beside her. The label on the bottle said to take two pills a day, one in the morning and one at night.  Her gastric contents contained 820 mg/L codeine (450 mL total volume) and her blood contained 2.5 mg/L codeine.  (The GC/MS analysis also showed 0.080mg/L morphine, a metabolite of codeine.)  If the volume of distribution (Vd) of codeine is 3.5 L/kg, what is the minimum number (ignoring the morphine) of tablets that the victim had ingested? Is this number consistent withan intentional drug overdose (suicide)? (Hint: dose amount = Vd ´mass ´ concentration).

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