Peter Vallely

Peter is recently retired from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) where he held the position of Principal Specialist, Forensic Chemist for fourteen years attached to the High Risk and Emerging Drugs Derermination {HRED). Prior to this Peter served with the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna as the Principal Technical Advisor to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). His involvement with illicit drug manufacture commenced in 1984 when he joined the Forensic Chemistry Section of what is now Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services (QHFSS) where he ultimately headed the Clandestine Laboratory Section.

Peter has been associated with QAEHS since the release of their earliest data on drugs in waste waters. The ACIC recognised the power and potential of this emerging technique to provide robust information to governments on community drug consumption. Peter provided the technical component in the promotion and resourcing of what is now the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program. The initiative provides Federal, State and Territory authorities with comprehsive information on national illicit drug consumption trends.  Such information guides  in the development of appropriate health, law enforcement and regulatory responses to address identified changes in consumption characteristics.

The current waste water analytical protocols focus on the identification and quantitation of particular illicit drugs and/or their metabolites. The analytical techniques applied are also suited to identify a range of other chemicals associated with the illicit manufacture of these drugs. While there is no prospect of detecting these substances under the existing drug monitoring program sampling protocols, the identification of these allied substances is possible from samples collected under very particular conditions. Peter has collaborated with QAEHS in establishing a project for the synthesis of reference materials and the subsequent collection of their high resolution mass spectral characteristics.  This data will allow the detection in waste waters of some one hundred drug precursors, intermediates or by-products of synthesis.  The application of this analytical capability to specific samples could be developed into a useful intelligence gathering tool for law enforcement.