The number of synthetic cannabis products in the world is increasing rapidly. The biggest problem with these products is that the quality depends on illegal laboratories, which are difficult to investigate by law enforcement agencies. For this reason, users buy cannabicyclohexanol (CP 47,497), 5F-PB22, or other compounds at unknown purity and unknown concentrations.
Recently, it has become possible to legalize several substances for medical purposes. This made many patients find relief from pain, nausea, and loss of appetite. Delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) was approved for medical use in some countries like Canada and Germany. Still, another naturally occurring cannabinoid called CBD (cannabidiol) is experiencing a new wave of medical research. Some of the CBD preparations are also accessible for purchase on the internet and can be used as a cannabinoid medicine with fewer side effects. CBN – cannabinol – was recently approved in some European countries to treat or prevent inflamed airways, but there has been no record of its use as a medication
Delta 9 THC has been synthesized from olivetol through acid-catalyzed cyclization. It’s almost impossible to obtain delta 9 THC through natural processes because THCA synthase does not lose the carboxylic acid group until the last step of cannabinoid biosynthesis.
Delta 8 THC is one of the most medicinally active cannabinoids, but it has never been synthesized in lab conditions, explaining its scarcity. The only method available for High-quality delta 8 flowers synthesis relied on high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) – GC system with a particular column containing a chiral stationary phase and specific solvents. This HPLC-GC approach isn’t perfect because other cannabinoids coelute with delta 8 THC at this particular chromatographic condition, making it difficult to separate them from each other. The same applies to NMR spectroscopy which gives similar chemical shifts for all compounds present in marijuana extracts, making it impossible to separate delta 8 THC from other cannabinoids.
The only way of distinguishing delta 8 flower is GC-FID chromatography, which is slow and expensive. Some scientists have tried various ways to overcome this obstacle by exploring different stationary phases for HPLC/GC separation of delta 9 CBD compared to CBD. Still, they failed because these cannabinoids coelute at the same retention time. This method can be used only if the composition of the plant material is known precisely.
