SFC-MS for the quality control of cannabis: addressing the potential adulteration with synthetic cannabinoids

Recent years have been the stage to a shift in cannabis policies and trends that have impacted cannabis usage and public perception. On the other hand, there has also been a rise in the development and distribution of synthetic cannabinoids which are synthetic compounds that also act on the endocannabinoid receptors. They are mostly used as recreational drugs and because their potency and toxicity are not always known, they can lead to severe adverse effects after consumption. The detection of cannabis counterfeiting with synthetic cannabinoids is essential to produce safe cannabis-based medicines and we aimed to develop a generic supercritical fluid chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry (SFC-MS) method that could help in detecting such adulterations using representative synthetic cannabinoids from multiple classes.
Method development started with a screening of stationary phases using seven different SFC-dedicated columns. Then, an optimization following analytical quality-by-design principles was performed followed by an assessment of the quantitative performances with a validation according to the total-error strategy. This innovative tool should prove useful in the context of counterfeit drugs tracking in the challenges to come.