Thomas Brian F - The Analytical Chemistry of Cannabis

1. Tables in Chapter 1

1. Figures in Chapter 1
2. Figures in Chapter 2
3. Figures in Chapter 3
4. Figures in Chapter 4
5. Figures in Chapter 5
6. Figures in Chapter 6

Series Editor

Brian F. Thomas

Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutics, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, United States

Mahmoud A. ElSohly

National Center for Natural Products Research, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, MS, United States

Emerging Issues in Analytical Chemistry

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ISBN: 978-0-12-804646-3

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This work is dedicated to my wife Cathy, and my mentors Billy Martin, Ed Cook, Bob Jeffcoat, and Ken Davis.

Suman Chandra , National Center for Natural Products Research, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, MS, United States

Mahmoud A. ElSohly , National Center for Natural Products Research, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, MS, United States

Michelle Glass , Department of Pharmacology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Hemant Lata , National Center for Natural Products Research, Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, MS, United States

Raphael Mechoulam , Institute for Drug Research, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Roger G. Pertwee , Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom

Brian F. Thomas , Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutics, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, United States

Ryan G. Vandrey , Behavioral Biology Research Unit, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States

Roger G. Pertwee, MA, DPhil, DSc, HonFBPhS, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom

Cannabis has been used for thousands of years for recreational, medicinal, or religious purposes. However, the determination of the chemical structures of its cannabinoids, terpenes, and many other constituents, and of the pharmacological actions and possible therapeutic uses of some of these compounds, began less than 100 years ago. This book begins by describing the cultivation, harvesting, and botanical classification of cannabis plants, and then goes on to specify how these plants produce some of their chemical constituents. Subsequent chapters focus on medical formulations of cannabis and cannabis-derived drugs, on the routes of administration of these formulations, and on analytical methods that are used in the formulation development and for the quality control or stability assessment of cannabis constituents. The penultimate chapter deals with regulatory and additional formulation-related issues for medical cannabis and cannabinoids, while the final chapter identifies ways in which analytical chemistry will most likely contribute to the development of cannabinoid therapeutics in the future. This book provides much needed insights into the important roles that analytical chemistry has already played and is likely to continue to play in the development of cannabis and its constituents as medicines.

Pharmacology began with natural products and, over some years on either side of 1900, evolved into a rigorous scientific discipline dominated, at least in the West, by well-defined chemical entities, either extracted and processed or synthesized. The two traditions evolved together, each informing the other, the natural strain by long experience pointing the way toward how a drug development program might be structured, the synthetic strain contributing molecular specificity, with analytical chemistry a common element. The resultant contribution to modern medicine, with all its caveats and controversies, must be accounted as one of the great advancements in science.

Natural products pharmacology is very much alive. However, that natural is one cause of the popular misconception that herbs are in some way better or safer than pills. Though some herbal remedies do appear to be safe and effective, the opposite is closer to the truth. Cannabis is a good example. The number of parameters on which cannabis products can vary is enormous, from strain, growing conditions, harvesting methods, and handling to storage and processing of the raw material to combination with a wide variety of foods and other excipients in manufacturing to methods of administration (eating, smoking, vaping, applying to mucous membranes). At every step, from planting through consumption, myriad influences can alter dose, absorption rate, interactions among constituents, exposure to toxins, and a host of other factors that can result in underdosing, overdosing, and various types and levels of acute and chronic poisoning, not excepting an increase in the probability of lung cancer. Even if quality were well controlled, which on the whole is very much not the case, this complexity means that governmental oversight of cannabis products cannot be as close and complete as that for prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Caveat emptor.