Identification and quantification of synthetic cannabinoids in “spice-like” herbal mixtures: Update of the German situation for the spring of 2016

•First identification and quantification of THJ-018 in a herbal blend specimen.•Full physico-chemical characterization of the new 5-chloro- and 4-pentenyl analogs of AKB48.•GC-MS quantification of 8 different synthetic cannabinoids using JWH-018 as internal standard.•Full NMR data set for MAB-CHMINACA.

In February 2016, nine “spice-like” products from German language internet shops were analyzed. In total, eight different synthetic cannabinoids were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), namely THJ-018, THJ-2201, MAB-CHMINACA, 5F-ADB, 5Cl-AKB48 (syn.: 5C-AKB48), 4-pentenyl-AKB48, MDMB-CHMICA and 5F-AB-PINACA. For the majority of products only one synthetic cannabinoid was identified as the active ingredient, while two products contained 2 and 5 compounds, respectively. For some of the identified cannabinoids (MAB-CHMINACA, 5Cl-AKB48 and 4-pentenyl-AKB48) no or only insufficient physico-chemical data were available in literature. To our knowledge 5Cl-AKB48 and 4-pentenyl-AKB48 were found for the first time in commercially available products, hence an in-depth characterization of these compounds by NMR, EI-MS, ESI-MS/MS, IR- and UV spectroscopy was conducted.In addition, all synthetic cannabinoids were quantified by a GC-MS method using JWH-018 as internal standard and the corresponding response factors to calculate the total amount of all synthetic cannabinoids in the commercial smoking mixtures. The content of synthetic cannabinoids in the investigated products ranged from 23 to 120 mg/g (average: 57 mg/g), while individual compounds ranged from 1 to 120 mg/g.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (152KB)Download full-size image