Chocolate Alters Cannabis Potency Testing, Report Indicates
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap] team of researchers from CW Analytical Laboratories released a report that found components in chocolate may interfere with cannabis potency testing results, according to a press release on Aug. 25. The findings were recently presented to the scientific community at a gathering of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
The team highlighted the importance of accurate testing. “My research focuses on cannabis potency testing because of the high stakes associated with it,” stated David Dawson, Ph.D., the project’s lead researcher. “If an edible cannabis product tests 10 percent below the amount on the label, California law states that is must be relabeled, with considerable time and expense. But it’s even worse if a product tests 10 percent or more above the labeled amount–then the entire batch must be destroyed.”
Called the “matrix,” foods that are infused with cannabis contain several other components, some of which can interfere with lab results. The team then noticed that the components of chocolate were suppressing the signal for Delta-9-THC.
The effects from chocolate could be identified by changing the amount in the samples. “When we had less cannabis-infused chocolate in the sample vial, say one gram, we got higher THC potencies and more precise values than when we had two grams of the same infused chocolate in the vial,” Dawson added. “This goes against what I would consider basic statistical representation of samples, where one would assume that the more samples you have, the more representative it is of the whole.”
The team plans presented the results at the ACS National Meeting & Exposition, which took place Aug. 25-29 in San Diego, California. ACS is one of the world’s largest scientific societies, featuring more than 9,500 presentations on a diverse range of scientific topics.
While the team does not yet know which chemical compound is affecting potency tests—there are plenty of active compounds in chocolate to think about including theobromine or caffeine, which are stimulants. But much more interesting is the presence of anandamide, which is thought to produce minor effects that are highly similar to THC. Anandamide is a natural neurotransmitter that binds to the same receptors as THC.
The discovery could lead to a viable explanation as to why some edible consumers report far different effects than what they expected due to the THC content on the label.
