Qualitative and quantitative determination of delta 9-THC, CBD and their precursors by liquid chromatography coupled UV detection.

Illegal drugs are one of the major issues in today's society affecting a big percentage of the worldwide population, causing economical, public health and security problems. Cannabis sativa, being a part of this group, is not the most dangerous one, but certainly the most discussed and outgoing drug considering it's increasing consume and the discovery of new compounds. Cannabis legalization and new products in the market make it difficult to monitor and verify whether the quantity of the main cannabinoids is in conformity with the law. For this reason, it was necessary to optimize a method in order to differentiate the compounds found in the seized samples and check whether they can be considered as legal or not. We were able to efficiently separate cannabinoids in our samples by using HPLC-UV method. An accurate identification was possible thanks to the optimization of the mobile phase used. The extraction time of the plant material was investigated in order to understand how it influences the results. Also, it was possible to evaluate the concentration of four cannabinoids (CBDA, CBD, THCA, THC) in each sample by using a new machine “Shimadzu HPLC Cannabis Analyser”. The extraction procedure and the chromatographic method developed allowed us to evaluate the percentage distribution of THC-THCA, CBD-CBDA in every sample. As it was expected, high amounts of THC-THCA were found in the samples deriving from the Austrian police. Beyond this, it was interesting to see that questionable amounts of THC-THCA were found in legal products deriving from hemp shops. These results suggest that higher attention should be paid to the new "legal" products in the market.