Abstract
Goal: To map the recent prevalence of alcohol and other psychoactive substances in deceased victims of traffic accidents in the Czech Republic. Material and methods: The studied sample consisted of individuals autopsied in the departments of forensic medicine and forensic toxicology who died during traffic accidents in 2008 and were toxicologically tested for one or more of the following substances: ethanol, volatile substances, cannabis, opiates, stimulants, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and barbiturates.
Case definition involved alcohol cases with blood alcohol concentration (BAC) 0,2 g/kg and higher; with cannabis, detections of active THC metabolites only were taken into account; from cases where volatile substances (solvents) were detected we included into the positive cases only those where substances were not produced post mortem or in some physiological or pathological statuses. Results: The sample consisted of 1,040 persons deceased in traffic accidents, of whom 582 (56.0%) were examined.