Capacities to oxidize sparteine and debrisoquine in healthy Canadian Caucasians were compared. The Spearman rank correlation between the conventional urinary metabolic ratios (drug/metabolite) was rs = 0.79 (P < 0.001), but the sparteine metabolic ratio appears to be the more discriminating probe to distinguish metabolizers and nonmetabolizers. The urinary amount of oxidized sparteine alone may allow reliable detection of nonmetabolizers. From a total of 17 poor metabolizers observed in this study and in studies in Germany and Sweden, all were deficient in metabolizing capacity for both sparteine and debrisoquine.