Review of analytical methods for identification and quantification of cannabis products.

About 100 recently published original papers, reviews, books and other communications concerning cannabis (hashish, marijuana) constituents have been reviewed with the aim of summarizing the status of analytical detection and quantitation. Detailed protocols of standard analytical methods are compared in order to recommend uniform methods for field and forensic samples and also to provide guidance to less experienced analysts in countries where cannabis sativa occurs (T. Maylon.In Big Deal: The Politics of the Illicit Drug Business, the Cannabis Commodity Market, pp. 63-107. Guernsey, London.). Because of its importance, there has been an increasing number of investigations of the chemical, botanical, pharmacological, clinical and sociological aspects of the marijuana (hashish) problem. Since analytical techniques have improved substantially during the last 10 years, many papers have been published containing a variety of methods for detection and quantification of cannabis constituents. Since the analytical situation is becoming increasingly confused and because many of the journals are unavailable in less developed countries, the aim of this paper is to give an overview of existing analytical techniques and to attempt to distinguish practical and effective methods from those which are complex or which provide questionable results.

Determination of the trypanocidal drugs homidium, isometamidium and quinapyramine in bovine serum or plasma using HPLC.

Sensitive HPLC analytical methods for trypanocidal drugs in serum or plasma have been developed. The methods are suitable for the analysis of drugs that are widely used against animal trypanosomiasis at present, including Homidium bromide (Ethidium, Boots Company Ltd.), Homidium chloride (Novidium, May and Baker Ltd.), Isometamidium chloride (Samorin, May and Baker Ltd.), Quinapyramine chloride (Antrycide, ICI) and Quinapyramine sulphate (Trypacide, May and Baker Ltd.). The detection limits for various drugs range between 3 and 20 ng per ml of serum, when serum volumes up to 10 ml have been processed. These methods provide a significant improvement of sensitivity for Isometamidium over existing analytical procedures and represent new methods for analysis of Homidium and Quinapyramine.

Fingerprint analyses of plant and animal tissues with respect to the occurrence of foreign compounds.

Glass capillary chromatography can be used for the characterization of complex mixtures of plant and animal samples after clean-up by counter-current distribution. For good reproducibility of fingerprint patterns a special splitless injection system is used. This method prevents any loss at injection. In order to determine organochlorine substances also in trace amounts (a few pg) an electroncapture detector (ECD) was used. Each step in the analysis procedure was checked with the aid of radioactively labelled substances, e.g. the polar compound pentachlorophenol and the non-polar compound hexachlorobenzene. With the aid of capillary chromatography-mass spectrometry substances in complex mixtures in a concentration of 10 to 100 ng/microliters can be characterized. Suitable glass capillaries for these investigation were prepared in this laboratory. The results indicate that a standardization of the procedure is practicable.