Template:Past, Present, and Future of Cannabis Laboratory Testing and Regulation in the United States/Laboratory testing of cannabis/Methods and guidelines/Cannabinoid testing

From CannaQAWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Quantifying cannabinoids for label accuracy is a major goal of testing, though calculation and testing processes may vary slightly from state to state. Despite any differences, laboratorians generally agree that when testing for cannabinoids such as THC and CBD, as well as their respective biosynthetic precursors THCA and CBDA, the methodology used must be scrutinized. The naturally occurring THCA of cannabis isn't psychoactive; it requires decarboxylation (a chemical reaction induced by drying/heating that releases carbon dioxide) to convert itself into the psychoactive cannabinoid THC. Chemical calculations show that the process of decarboxylation results in approximately 87.7 percent of the THCA's mass converting to THC, with the other 12.3 percent bubbling off as CO2 gas.[1] The problem with this in the testing domain is gas chromatography (GC) involves heating the sample solution. If you, the lab technician, require precise numbers of both THCA and THC, then GC analysis poses the risk of under-reporting THC total values.[2] As such, liquid chromatography-diode array detection (LC-DAD) may be required if a concise profile of all cannabinoids must be made, primarily because it provides environmental stability for them all during analysis. If GC is used, the analysis requires extra considerations such as sample derivatization.[2][3][4][5]

The APHL briefly describes analysis methods of cannabinoids using both LC and GC on pages 31–32 of their May 2016 Guidance for State Medical Cannabis Testing Programs. They also point to New York Department of Health - Wadsworth Center's various guidance documents (MML-300, -301, and -303) for methodologies when testing sample types other than solids, particularly using high-performance liquid chromatography photodiode array detection (HPLC-PAD).[2][6] Also worth noting is that ASTM's Subcommittee D37.03 has been working on various standard methods for determining cannabinoid concentrations using different chromatography techniques[7], while the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC) has already developed a Standard Method Performance Requirement (SMPR) for analyzing cannabinoids in hemp (i.e., low THC cannabis varieties).[8]

Overall, various methods used in cannabinoid testing include[2][3][6][9][10][11][12]:

Also worthy of note is recent investigation of viably using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a more affordable and rapid solution to identifying cannabinoid contents and profiles of samples. Conferences[13], research[14][15][16], and articles[17][18][19] over the last four or five years have advanced the use of NMR spectroscopy for cannabinoid analysis.

  1. ↑ "Why 0.877?". Confidence Analytics. 10 February 2016. https://www.conflabs.com/why-0-877/. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Association of Public Health Laboratories (May 2016). "Guidance for State Medical Cannabis Testing Programs" (PDF). pp. 35. https://www.aphl.org/aboutAPHL/publications/Documents/EH-Guide-State-Med-Cannabis-052016.pdf. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cassiday, L. (October 2016). "The Highs and Lows of Cannabis Testing". INFORM. American Oil Chemists' Society. https://www.aocs.org/stay-informed/inform-magazine/featured-articles/the-highs-and-lows-of-cannabis-testing-october-2016. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  4. ↑ Rigdon, A. (29 July 2015). "Accurate Quantification of Cannabinoid Acids by GC – Is it Possible?". ChromaBLOGraphy. Restek Corporation. Archived from the original on 01 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190301212605/http://blog.restek.com/?p=14961. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  5. ↑ Rigdon, A. (9 September 2015). "Accurate Quantification of Cannabinoid Acids and Neutrals by GC – Derivatives without Calculus". ChromaBLOGraphy. Restek Corporation. Archived from the original on 06 April 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180406091114/https://blog.restek.com/?p=15135. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Division of Environmental Health Sciences, Laboratory of Organic Analytical Chemistry (3 November 2015). "Measurement of Phytocannabinoids using HPLC-PAD, NYS DOH MML-300" (PDF). New York State Department of Health. pp. 34. https://www.wadsworth.org/sites/default/files/WebDoc/576578963/MML-300-01.pdf. Retrieved 08 August 2022. 
  7. ↑ "Subcommittee D37.03 on Laboratory". ASTM International. https://www.astm.org/get-involved/technical-committees/committee-d37/subcommittee-d37. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  8. ↑ Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (12 November 2019). "New guidelines require laboratories to meet AOAC Standard Method Performance Requirements for Quantitation of Cannabinoids in Hemp". AOAC News. https://www.aoac.org/news/aoac-cannabinoid-standard-in-usda-guidelines/. Retrieved 05 August 2922. 
  9. ↑ Leghissa, A.; Smuts, J.; Qiu, C. et al. (2018). "Detection of cannabinoids and cannabinoid metabolites using gas chromatography with vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy". SSC Plus 1 (1): 37–42. doi:10.1002/sscp.201700005. 
  10. ↑ "Cannabis Testing: Quality You Can Trust" (PDF). Sigma-Aldritch Co. LLC. 2016. https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/deepweb/assets/sigmaaldrich/marketing/global/documents/116/856/cannabis-testing.pdf. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  11. ↑ Adams, T.; Bertone, M. (30 November 2016). "Near Infrared, GC and HPLC Applications in Cannabis Testing". Cannabis Industry Journal. Innovative Publishing Co. LLC. https://cannabisindustryjournal.com/column/near-infrared-gc-and-hplc-applications-in-cannabis-testing/. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  12. ↑ Goldman, Stephen; Bramante, Julia; Vrdoljak, Gordon; Guo, Weihong; Wang, Yun; Marjanovic, Olivera; Orlowicz, Sean; Di Lorenzo, Robert et al. (15 June 2021). "The analytical landscape of cannabis compliance testing" (in en). Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies 44 (9-10): 403–420. doi:10.1080/10826076.2021.1996390. ISSN 1082-6076. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10826076.2021.1996390. 
  13. ↑ Zailer, E. (2 January 2019). "Recap of the First NMR Cannabis Meeting". Spectral Service AG. https://www.spectralservice.de/recap-of-the-first-nmr-cannabis-meeting/?lang=en. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  14. ↑ Wang, X.; Harrington, P.B.; Baugh, S.F. (2017). "Comparative Study of NMR Spectral Profiling for the Characterization and Authentication of Cannabis". Journal of AOAC International 100 (5): 1356–64. doi:10.5740/jaoacint.17-0089. PMID 28718398. 
  15. ↑ Marchetti, L.; Brighenti, V.; Rossi, M.C. et al. (2019). "Use of 13C-qNMR Spectroscopy for the Analysis of Non-Psychoactive Cannabinoids in Fibre-Type Cannabis sativa L. (Hemp)". Molecules 24 (6): 1138. doi:10.3390/molecules24061138. 
  16. ↑ Siudem, P.; Wawer, I.; Paradowska, K. (2019). "Rapid evaluation of edible hemp oil quality using NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy". Journal of Molecular Structure 1177: 204–08. doi:10.1016/j.molstruc.2018.09.057. 
  17. ↑ May, M. (28 September 2017). "NMR Spectroscopy: Producing a chemical fingerprint of cannabis". Analytical Cannabis. https://www.analyticalcannabis.com/articles/nmr-spectroscopy-producing-a-chemical-fingerprint-of-cannabis-292728. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  18. ↑ Bennett, P. (31 December 2018). "Cannabis Testing Explained: What’s in Your Cannabis?". Leafly. https://www.leafly.com/news/science-tech/why-test-cannabis. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
  19. ↑ Conn, P. (14 March 2019). "Cannabis: Trends in Analytical Research". The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Inc. https://pittcon.org/cannabis-trends-in-analytical-research/. Retrieved 05 August 2022. 
Retrieved from "https://www.cannaqa.wiki/index.php?title=Template:Past,_Present,_and_Future_of_Cannabis_Laboratory_Testing_and_Regulation_in_the_United_States/Laboratory_testing_of_cannabis/Methods_and_guidelines/Cannabinoid_testing&oldid=17952"