Thesis Title: Investigating the role of commonly misused drugs in unnatural death in Cape Town in 2022
Supervisors: Bronwen Davies and Chante du Toit 

Drug misuse is frequent among individuals and continues to be a public health concern worldwide due to its role in morbidity and mortality. Unnatural deaths such as homicides, suicides, and accidents involving drug impairment or toxicity, usually require toxicological analysis to determine the cause of, and circumstances surrounding death. Owing to an increase in the number of unnatural deaths each year and the high need for fast, reliable, accurate and comprehensive toxicological analyses in South Africa (SA), analytical skills with the application of modern screening and confirmatory techniques is an ever-increasing requirement in post-mortem toxicology. In the west metropole of the City of Cape Town, SA, post-mortem toxicological investigations were historically conducted by the National Department of Health’s Forensic Chemistry Laboratory (FCL), which is now part of the National Health Laboratory Services. However, toxicological investigations other than blood alcohol concentrations following unnatural deaths are not routinely performed in the majority of unnatural deaths by FCL due to resource and expertise constraints. The Forensic Toxicology Unit was therefore developed within the Western Cape Forensic Pathology Service to improve toxicological services in death investigation. It would be prudent to assess the results of this method following its first year of release, to determine the most frequently detected drugs, the use of the testing in finalizing causes of death and assess and recommend any changes to the method itself.