Cannabis Testing The Current Landscape
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Transcript of Cannabis Testing The Current Landscape
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Agenda
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
– The importance of testing
– The dynamic market
– The issue of oversight
– Questions patients and collectives should ask
Applications of Potency Testing in the Development of non-THC
Dominant Strains
– Identification
– Predictive crosses and collapsing the cycle time for CBD-rich strain
development
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
The Importance of Testing
– Provide objective information to patients for use in
selecting:
o Cannabinoid profile, THC:CBD
o Overall dosage level, THC + CBD
– Promote the availability of medically-important cannabis
options such as CBD-rich varieties
– Through strategic testing programs we can collapse the
cycle time for making these medically-important strains
available at the dispensary and patient level
– Cannabis testing supports the legitimization of the
cannabis movement
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
Dynamic environment
– Prevalence of testing is on the rise
– The cost of testing has driven dispensary choices in the past
– New laboratories emerging every month to take advantage
of the economic opportunity
o Increasing occurrence of non-scientists offering analytical services
o Instrument companies marketing to collectives and non-scientists
to do their own testing
– Patients and collectives are asking important questions
about reliability of results they are investing in
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
The Issue of Oversight
– Cannabis testing is currently un-regulated
– In a regulated environment a customer can simply choose a
lab that is “certified” to an agreed set of standards
o Method validation- Systematic verification that an analytical system
is repeatable and reliable
o Quality Control- Ongoing checks that repeated measurements agree
o Calibration requirements-
– Frequency
– Acceptance criteria
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing- The Current Landscape
Factors Affecting Accuracy & Precision in Potency Testing
– Sampling of product for testing at dispensary
– Sampling of product at the lab
o Scales / balances
o Volume measurement equipment
– Calibration of equipment
o Use of certified standards: chemical products certified for content of
THC, CBD & CBN
o Allows results to be consistent regardless of lab and which machine
is used
– Proper maintenance of equipment
– Side-by-side testing between facilities or third parties helps
confirm accuracy
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
Variations in methods used
– Choice of instrument
o GC vs HPLC or TLC
o Within GC, FID vs TCD vs MS detection
– Both GC and HPLC produce accurate results
– TLC (test strips) are usually used for qualitative purposes to determine if active
compounds are present, but not their amounts
– Instrument needed depends on the application of results
Application GC-FID or MS HPLCCombusted or
vaporized flowers and concentrates
X X
Edibles and tinctures X
99%
The Potency Testing Process
Gas Chromatography
– A low pressure stream of gas
helps move the compounds to the
detector
– Heated system
– Detects total available THC, CBD
and CBN
– Cannot detect cannabinoid acids
– Analysis does not produce
significant waste
High Performance Liquid Chromatography
– A high pressure stream of solvent
helps move compounds to the
detector
– System at ambient temperature
– Detects THC, THCA, CBD, CBDA
– Can detect cannabinoid acids
– Analysis produces a lot of solvent
waste
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
In the current non-regulated environment the consumer has to be savvy and know what questions to ask a prospective cannabis lab
10 Questions for a prospective cannabis lab:
1. What training or expertise do you have to be able to perform cannabinoid
analysis?
2. What is your method for testing cannabis? What are the limitations of your
selected method?
3. Which cannabinoids do you test for? Do you have reliable reference standards for
all of them?
4. Analytical methods need to be ‘validated’ before you can be sure they are fully
reliable. Have you done this already, and how did you do this. Did it include a third
party? If you didn’t do it yet, how can I be sure my results will be accurate?
5. How is CBN related to THC, and why is it important to test for it?
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape
10 Questions for a prospective cannabis lab, con’t:
6. Are you aware of acidic cannabinoids? In samples such as edibles and tincture
they can be present at high levels. How do you deal with that?
7. What is the average THC/CBD content your lab has measured?
8. Did your lab ever test the same cannabis twice, with very different results? What
was the explanation for that, and what has been changed to prevent it from
happening again?
9. What kind of samples do you test (flowers, edibles, tincture)? Have you
optimized your extraction and analysis protocol for each kind of sample?
10. What do you do with left-over samples?
Contributors: A. Hazekamp, J. Raber, N. Palmer, E. Taylor, P. Morris, S. Miller
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Applications of Potency Testing
Collapsing the Cycle Time for Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Developing CBD-rich Cannabis
Potency testing can accelerate the
development of CBD-rich varieties of cannabis
through
– Isolation of genetics of interest
– Strategic hybrid crosses supported by early-stage
growth testing
– Characterization of final product
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis
First step- identification of CBD-rich strains
– With the availability of potency testing several CBD-
rich strains have been identified, Cannatonic, Sour
Tsunami, Harlequin and many more
– Where seeds are commercially available this provides
a starting point for those looking to produce CBD-rich
cannabis
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis
Next- isolation of a CBD-rich specimen
– All currently available seed stock for CBD-rich strains are
a mixture of high-THC, high-CBD and low-CBD genetics
– In most cases, only 25% of those seeds are expected to
yield a CBD-dominant cannabis plant
– Strategic use of potency testing can isolate those CBD-
dominant plants before the flowering stage
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis
Early Stage Testing to Support Strategic Parent
Selection
– Cannabinoid profile can be characterized within the first
several weeks of the emergence of the shoot from the soil
– Botanically specific leaves are sampled and analyzed
– The results provide an accurate profiling of the relative
THC:CBD content in the flowers produced by the plant
– Method can be applied to both males and females
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis
Isolation of CBD-dominant plants during the vegetative
state offers several advantages:
– Avoid expensive and time-consuming back-cloning of all
seeds by isolating only those plants of interest
– Support selection of high-CBD parents for future crosses
without waiting an extra growth cycle to determine which
plants are CBD-rich through final flower testing
– Collapse the development cycle-time for isolation or
breeding of high-CBD strains down to weeks rather than
months or years
© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC
Thank You Denver!