A fast and inexpensive procedure for the isolation of synthetic cannabinoids from 'Spice' products using a flash chromatography system

In the age of the Internet, the variety of drugs offered online is constantly increasing, and new drugs emerge every month. One group of drugs showing such an enormous increase is that of synthetic cannabinoids. Since their first identification in 'herbal mixtures', new structural modifications continue to appear on the market. In order to keep up with this process, toxicological screening methods need to be up to date. This can become extremely difficult if no reference material is available. In this article, a fast and effective way to extract and purify synthetic cannabinoids from 'herbal mixtures' is presented. This method opens a new opportunity for a timely reaction by obtaining reference material straight out of the 'herbal mixtures' ordered via the Internet. Isolation was carried out on a flash chromatography system with gradient elution on a C18 column using methanol and 0.55 % formic acid as mobile phases. The obtained purity of all compounds exceeded 99 %. In addition to the isolation of single compounds, the method proved to be suitable for the separation of various synthetic cannabinoids in one mixture, including the diastereomers cis- and trans-CP-47,497-C8. This approach for obtaining pure standards of new drugs proved to be effective, inexpensive and much quicker than waiting for the substances to be commercially available as reference material.