Cannabis Testing The Current Landscape

© 2011 Pure Analytics, LLC

Cannabis Testing: The Current Landscape


Agenda


– 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



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



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



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


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



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




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?



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


Applications of Potency Testing

Collapsing the Cycle Time for Developing CBD-Rich Cannabis


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


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



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



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



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


Thank You Denver!

Education

Cannabis Testing The Current Landscape