THE USE OF NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY FOR THE QUANTITATION OF -9TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL IN MARIJUANA LEAVES

S. TUMULURI 1, S. ROSS 2, M. ELSOHLY 2, B. AVERY 1

PHARMACEUTICS, 2 National Center for Natural Products Research, UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI

Purpose. The objective of the study was to investigate and demonstrate the utility of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for the quantitative analysis of -9-THC in dry marijuana (cannabis sativa) plant leaves. Methods. Samples from different batches of cannabis sativa containing 3.74 16.94% -9-THC were used for the calibration model. The samples were ground to a fine powder using a mortar and pestle. NIR spectra of the marijuana samples from 10000 cm-1 to 4000 cm-1 were obtained using a Bruker Equinox 55/S FT-IR spectrophotometer in the reflectance mode. Chemometric calculations were performed using OPUS/QUANT2 version 2.2 software and a partial least squares algorithm was used for the calibration models. A sample set of 55 was used as the training set and 50 samples were used for validation. All the samples used for both of calibration and the validation were assayed using the standard GC reference method. Results. Various preprocessing techniques were used to build the calibration models. The linear regression of the final calibration model yielded a R2 of 0.97 with a root mean square error of 0.75. No spectral preprocessing was done for this model. The root mean square error of prediction was found to be 2.01. The amount of -9-THC contained in the cannabis sativa samples were determined to be within 10% of the actual value, obtained using the standard GC reference method, using the developed NIR method. Conclusion. A simple and rapid NIRS technique for the determination of -9-THC in marijuana plant was developed and validated. The predicted value obtained by the calibration model in FT-IR spectroscopy exhibited a good correlation with the actual value obtained by the GC analysis. Thus NIRS technique provides a good estimate of the amount of -9-THC present in cannabis sativa with virtually no sample preparation, decreased cost and minimal analysis time.