DEVELOPMENT OF A CANNABIS FINGERPRINT

THIS PROJECT INTENDS TO STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES TO BE USED FOR IDENTIFYING THE COUNTRYOF ORIGIN OF A GIVEN CANNABIS SAMPLE ON THE BASIS OF ITS CHEMICAL PROFILE. GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY/MASS SPECTROMETRY (GC/MS) WILL BE THE MAIN TECHNIQUE USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUCH PROCEDURES. BOTH UNDERIVATIZED AND DERIVATIZED CANNABIS EXTRACTS FROM MULTIPLE SAMPLES FROM EACH COUNTRY UNDER CONSIDERATION WILL BE ANALYZED. HIGH-RESOLUTION CAPILLARY COLUMNS WILL BE USED WITH PROGRAMMED TEMPERATURES TO MAXIMIZE THE NUMBER OF CHROMATOGRAPHIC PEAKS TO BE USED FOR DEVELOPING EACH SAMPLE'S FINGERPRINT. IN ADDITION, HIGH-RESOLUTION, HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY (HPLC) COLUMNS (3 PARTICLE SIZE) WILL BE EXAMINED EITHER AS A PRIMARY TECHNIQUE OR AS A BACKUP PROCEDURE IF NEEDED. DATA ANALYSIS WILL BE BY QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE COMPARISON OF THE CHROMATOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH SAMPLE. A DATABASE WILL BE DEVELOPED FOR FUTURE USE IN ANALYZING UNKNOWN SAMPLES.