Solid Phase Extraction Approach to the Analysis of Cannabinoids and their Metabolites in Urine by LC-MS/MS

Abstract

Cannabis is the most frequently consumed illegal substance worldwide. More recently, an increasing number of legal cannabis products low in psychoactive Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) but high in non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD) are being more widely consumed. While the detection and quantification of THC and its metabolites in urine matrices is an important forensic-toxicological task, additional detection of CBD is also important, for example, when examining the plausibility of consumer statements. This report describes the SPE method validation for the quantitative determination of cannabinoids and their metabolites in urine. The obtained limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.01 ng mL-1 for all investigated analytes, while the average recoveries as well as linearity for 11-OH-THC, CBD, CBN, and THC met the AOAC requirement, except the THC-COOH.