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Although systems for growing, production, and sale of cannabis and cannabis related products are well established, regulation and enforcement of quality and safety testing have lagged behind. However, state governments and private laboratories are focusing on product safety testing with special emphasis on pesticide analysis. This focus is partially the result of various product recalls, media attention, and concern from patient advocacy groups. We evaluated a modified quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) sample preparation method followed by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) for the analysis of multiresidue pesticides. The Association of Analytical Communities International (AOAC) QuEChERS method was used for a reduced 1.5-g amount of plant material and processed with a universal dispersive solid-phase extraction (dSPE) formulation. LC–MS/MS analysis used constant polarity switching electrospray ionization (ESI) and monitored at least two transitions per analyte. Matrix-matched calibration was used for quantitation and both method and instrument internal standards were used. Analyte recovery validation was performed according to the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) guidelines by testing three matrices at three fortification levels in triplicate for more than 200 pesticides. For the large majority of pesticides, in all three matrices and at all three fortification levels, recovery was 70-120%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on application which focuses on performance benefits achieved with LipiFiltr cleanup cartridge from UCT for analysis of pesticides in oil-based cannabis product using Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. Topics discussed include use of Cannabidiol oil as representative matrix, removal of lipid co-extractive without compromisiong and polar compounds such as acephate.