Nope.
No vaporization in High Performace Liquid Chromatography.
You are thinking of Gas Chromatograpy, where the analyte needs to be vaporized to be analyzed
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So here’s the thing with this Industry, no one knows what you can really do with exotic cannabinoids in terms of production or commerce. All of these questions need to be answered by either lengthy court battles (which no one wants to do) or legislation. Not only that, but in America, the law enforcement agencies have a policy of seize now figure it out in court later.
Moral of the story, good luck.
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You hit the nail on the head. They can shut you down and confiscate everything and you’ll spend months or years trying to get it back even if you’re in the right.
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Asset forfeiture is nothing to fuck with.
People need to keep in mind that the feds win 96% of criminal cases. Remember, Ross Ulbricht got two consecutive life sentences for simply creating a website. Money laundering, computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics landed him in Club Fed for the rest of his life. Conspiracy is a real motherfucker of a charge to fight. Our “justice” system understands the value of examples. I feel really bad for the poor bastard who the feds decide to make an example of.
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The subject of this issue is Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), which occurs naturally in the plant. THCA needs to be heated so it changes into THC, the active form that gets you high. All cannabinoids occur naturally in their acid forms, that’s just how their enzymes make them. The difference between THCA and THC is a carboxy group . Upon smoking, cooking or vaping heat gets rid of the carboxy so THCA gives of CO2, loosing about 12% of its weight in the process. Why does this matter for lab testing? Because THCA is heavier than THC, and lab results are given in percent mass.
The root of the confusion is the fact that different lab techniques give inherently different potency values. Depending on the lab, the analysis machine might use one of two separation methods: gas chromatography (GC) or liquid chromatography (LC).
GC happens at high temperatures, enough to completely decarboxylate all the cannabinoids in the mixture. The oven it happens in decarboxylates THCA before passing on to the detector, so it only picks up THC. This makes GC almost useless for testing edibles, because you need to be able to tell the difference between orally inactive THCA and active THC. Furthermore, decarboxylation happens incompletely at those high temperatures in the injector port, conserving no more than 70% of THCA, according to one study.
Liquid chromatography happens at room temperature and does not decarboxylate any cannabinoids, giving separate values for THCA and THC, which are always both present. These results need to be interpreted correctly, and hold hidden information about how the sample was handled and temperatures it has been exposed to.
Let’s look at an example. Given one lab result you could get three THC potency readings depending on how you read it, but only one method really stands to reason. Consider a made up lab result of Hypothetical OG that used LC, say it has 22.32% percent mass of THCA and 2.41% percent mass THC (active THC).
If you just look at the THCA value, you might think it has 22.32% THC. If you add the THC value to that, you might think this strain has 24.74% THC. Neither of these values is correct.
To get a real potency value you need to consider both THCA and THC, but with a correction factor for THCA before you add in THC. To calculate THCTOTAL:
THCtotal = (%THCA) x 0.877 + (%THC)
0.877 is the molecular mass (mm) of THC divided by that of THCA; this factor boils it down to a simple formula: take 87.7% of the value for THCA, then add on the value for THC. This formula also holds true for finding the active CBD content (CBDTOTAL) because CBD and THC have the exact same mm. Therefore the correct value of THCTOTAL for Hypothetical OG is 21.98%, the weighted average of THCA and THC.
To get a real measure of the potency of a strain of pot, you need to look at THCTOTAL. This is because the relative amounts of THCA and THC depend on the amount of heat the flower, dry bud or extract has been exposed to. Since this is always different, lab testing needs to see past this variable.
Since GC doesn’t work for edibles, many labs are switching to LC to test for edibles. If you know you’re looking at a lab test that used LC, you’ll need to use this formula to get a consistent value of THCTOTAL.
When looking at lab results, make sure to take this into consideration. Be suspicious of lab results that just give you one number for %THC. If the lab used GC, you won’t have this issue at all. The %THC given from a GC machine roughly reflects THCTOTAL.
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To who?
Very concise explanation, that’s how I understand it. I was trying to convince siosis of the same. Here’s a pic of the formula on the bottom of my test. But my only point was that the farm bill doesn’t make thca regulated in hemp only d9thc.
That’s the exact thing I was telling you… total THC is calculated by adding both…
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Thca is thc pre heat. When they put it into a HPLC it’s vaporized AKA adds heat, and converts all thca to thc during the COA test
This is the part I was saying was not correct
The formula is standard for how Everyone in the world will calculate total THC content. Some guys trying to claim THCa doesn’t count. Only doesn’t count if your county or state is completely and totally retarded and will change very fast
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For the record… I did not write this. I am terrible at explaining things.
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I’m in America, where are you? Just read the farm bill. Come on man. I’m not being rude, and I really don’t care to argue. I’d be interested to know about any legislation that does include THCA if you know of any.
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Every testing lab in the countries standards and their SOPs.
When they return they’re COA they break them all down, and then have a final total CBD and total THC count … they both Include cbd and cbda and then thc and thca
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The Anologue Act at a very minimum applies to THCA.
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I would argue, perhaps from a standpoint of chemical naivete, that that is no longer applicable to THC-A if it is hemp derived.
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Maybe there is a chemist here to explain how and if the analogue actt applies
The Analogue Act is based on the molecule and doesn’t say anything about where it comes from. It is still considered solid case law. In reality the feds could go after a tremendous number of people. They don’t really have a tremendous history of it, but they haven’t lost.
In addition the language in the farm bill says “dry weight.” I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to use that. Dry enough and you will have decarbed most of it.
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I wondered about your last point as well. THCA being so unstable poses several legal quandaries as others have written about. But for stable cannabinoids, does the Farm Bill 2018 not supplant the Analogue Act regarding hemp derivatives? I have talked to someone with connections to DEA who is going to get their input.
I can see the Farm Bill saving you from small amounts. But kg’s? I’m not sure they couldn’t/wouldn’t use the Analogue act and link it to a schedule 1 and then use the incredibly broad language there(isomers and such)
Not a lawyer, but a decent chemist.
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