**4.1 Types of illegal/malpractices**

Deliberate malpractices can be broadly classified into two categories**adulteration** and **substitution**. The term '**adulteration**' can be defined as 'admixturing or substituting original or genuine drug with inferior, defective or otherwise useless or harmful substance'. Adulteration in simple words is the debasement of an article [19]. The drugs may be adulterated with substandard commercial varieties or with superficially similar inferior drugs or

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authentic plant.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98253*

substitution may be difficult to detect.

ated by papaya seeds.

to Honey.

*4.1.1 Types of adulteration and substitution*

Citral to oil of lime and orange.

powder in coffee powder, etc.

with artificially manufactured substance or with same exhausted drug or with synthetic chemicals to enhance natural character or with any other harmful adulterant. The drugs which are in powdered form are frequently adulterated as identification of adulterant becomes very difficult in powdered form of drugs. According to World Health Organization's (WHO) publication on quality standards for medicinal plant materials, any batch of raw herbal drug which has more than 5% of any other plant part, even of the same plant say, stem in leaf drugs, should be strictly rejected never the less if they are derived from the

**Substitution** may be defined as a process of replacing partially or completely an authentic herbal drug with its different species or with different plant part or with any other material that have similar morphology or functional property so that the

a.*Adulteration with inferior commercial varieties* [20, 21]: they are added due to similarity in morphology; for example, black pepper (*Piper nigrum*) adulter-

b.*Adulteration by artificially manufactured substitutes* [20, 21]: the artificially manufactured substance resembles the original drug. This method is used for the costlier drugs. For example, artificial invert sugar or cane sugar is added

c.*Adulteration by exhausted drugs* [20, 21]: when the drug is devoid of medicinally active substance as it has been extracted already and then is used to make the herbal product, such substitution comes under this category. Mainly volatile oil containing drugs like clove, coriander, fennel, caraway are adulterated by this method. As it is devoid of colour and taste due to extraction, natural colour and taste is balanced with additives and synthetic chemicals, e.g. Clove, Fennel, etc.

d.*Adulteration by addition of heavy metals* [20, 21]: many a times due to nonstandardized or sub-standardized processing of raw herbal drugs, many harmful pollutants from the soil and environment get added to the final product,

e.*Adulteration by synthetic principles* [20, 21]: synthetic chemicals are used to enhance natural colour, fragrance and taste of the exhausted drugs, e.g. adding

f. *Adulteration of powders* [20, 21]: the drugs which are in the form of powders are frequently adulterated as it is almost impossible to detect the adulteration without any technological tool. For example, dextrin is added in ipecacuanha, exhausted ginger in ginger, red sanders wood in capsicum powder and powdered bark adulterated with brick powder, metanil yellow in turmeric powder, chalk powder in wheat flour, red brick powder in red chili powder, chicory

g.*Presence of vegetative matter of same plant* [20, 21]: small pieces of all dried root, stem and leaf of different plant look similar. Some miniature plants growing along with the medicinal plants are added due to their colour, odour, and constituents. Small twigs, stems, leaves are often added to the

e.g. pieces of limestone in asafoetida, lead in pieces of opium.

### *Herbal Drugs Forensic DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98253*

with artificially manufactured substance or with same exhausted drug or with synthetic chemicals to enhance natural character or with any other harmful adulterant. The drugs which are in powdered form are frequently adulterated as identification of adulterant becomes very difficult in powdered form of drugs. According to World Health Organization's (WHO) publication on quality standards for medicinal plant materials, any batch of raw herbal drug which has more than 5% of any other plant part, even of the same plant say, stem in leaf drugs, should be strictly rejected never the less if they are derived from the authentic plant.

**Substitution** may be defined as a process of replacing partially or completely an authentic herbal drug with its different species or with different plant part or with any other material that have similar morphology or functional property so that the substitution may be difficult to detect.
