Detection and Quantification of New Designer Drugs in Human Blood: Part 1 Synthetic Cannabinoids

Synthetic cannabinoids sprayed on herbal mixtures have been abused as a new designer drug all over the world since 2004. In 2008, the first compounds, CP 47,497 and JWH-018, were identified as active ingredients in these mixtures. Most of the compounds have been synthesized for research purposes and are potent CB1 and/or CB2 receptor agonists. To investigate the presence of synthetic cannabinoids in blood samples, a liquid chromatographytandem mass spectrometry (LCMS-MS) method was developed using only 100 L of blood. After the addition of 0.2 mL of trizma buffer, the blood was extracted using liquidliquid extraction with 1 mL of 1-chlorobutane containing 10 of isopropanol for 5min on a shaker at 1,500rpm. After centrifugation at 12,000rpm for 1 min, the separated solvent layer was transferred to an autosampler vial and evaporated to dryness under N-2. The residue was reconstituted in methanol and injected into a Shimadzu 8030 LCMS-MS system to separate and detect 25 synthetic cannabinoids. The method has been validated according to international guidelines and was found to be selective for all tested compounds. Calibration was satisfactory from 0.5100 ng/mL, and from 5.0500 ng/mL. for HU-210, CP 47,497 and the CP 47,497 C-8 homolog, respectively. The extraction efficiencies ranged from 30101 and the matrix effects from 67112. Accuracy data were within the acceptance interval of 15 (20 at the lower limit of quantification) of the nominal values for all drugs.