ICP-MS – News and Features

To find out more about cannabis testing in California and how CannaSafe is working hard to ensure consumers and patients receive contaminant-free and rigorously-tested cannabis, we spoke to their President, Aaron Riley.

In this interview, Dr Kaveh Kahen, Senior Director and General Manager of Mass Spectrometry for PerkinElmer, gives his view on technical challenges in cannabis testing and how they can help labs in this growing industry.

Driven by the introduction and evolution of cannabis contaminant testing, and regulations in many different states, companies in the cannabis testing industry are constantly innovating and creating new methods and applications for use in testing laboratories. We spoke to Anthony Macherone to learn more about some of the major trends and potential future themes in the cannabis testing industry.

Twelve months ago, in conjunction with the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission (MMCC), I put together a workshop on measuring heavy metal contaminants in cannabis by ICP-MS in Columbia, MD. Read about some of the highlights in this article.

A recent announcement by the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division proposed that by January, 2022, all marijuana concentrates in vaporized delivery devices must be tested for heavy metal contaminants in the emitted aerosol by an authorized testing facility.

Few industries are growing quite as rapidly as the cannabis industry. Cannabis-based beverages emerging as one of the latest trends in an ever-transforming market. However, while they represent a real opportunity, cannabis- and hemp-infused beverages also present unique analytical challenges.

Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) is an analytical technique that is used to identify the atomic composition of a sample. In this article we will explore how the technique works, what it tells us, strengths, limitations and common problems, and how it compares to other techniques in this analytical niche.

Heavy metals are one of several possible contaminants in cannabis and cannabis products, in addition to pesticides, microbial organisms, and residual solvents. With the final implementation stage of more comprehensive testing regulations that were phased in, California-based cannabis producers are now required to test for heavy metal contaminants in products intended for retail sale.

This article is the first part in a series on the importance of measuring heavy metals in cannabis and hemp. In particular, the series will explore how the cannabis industry can learn a great deal from the pharmaceutical industry, which took over 20 years to bring in meaningful and comprehensive regulations for elemental impurities to ensure the safety and efficacy of drug products.

Part five of our series on regulating heavy metal contaminants in cannabis will take a look at how analytical testing procedures can often lead to contamination and sources of errors if not adequately addressed.