A comprehensive review on detection of cannabinoids using hyphenated techniques

Cannabis and its related products have increasingly been consumed in India as they produce the desired euphoric effects in human body. Cannabis blends many of the properties of alcohol, opium, tranquilizers, and hallucinogens and develops severe effects when synthesized using other chemicals. In India, cannabis is listed as a narcotic drug, and the consumption of cannabis is increasing steadily across the nation. Long-term and regular use of cannabis can lead to addiction and drug-facilitated crimes in our society. In such predicaments, conducting a chemical analysis for these drugs is necessary to detect the type and the amount of drug consumed by an abuser. For this purpose, chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry setups has been highly employed by researchers. This study is a review conducted on articles that have been developed and validated chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques between years 2015 and 2022 for the detection of cannabinoids. The sample preparation and extraction procedures employed in each research paper have been discussed in detail. The analytical parameters of the instrument used in each article have been tabulated, and the range of the same has been calculated. The review is a cumulative report of chromatography and mass spectrometric techniques used for the detection of natural and synthetic cannabinoids. The study offers a wide range of novel and modified extraction and analytical techniques implemented on different sample matrices. The report will help the experts to review and select suitable analytical method and parameters according to the matrix available for analysis. The study shows that the researchers prefer liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry setups for the detection of cannabinoids.