Identification and quantitation of JWH-213, a cannabimimetic indole, as a designer drug in a herbal product.

In our survey of designer drugs in the Japanese market, a cannabimimetic indole was identified as a new active compound in a herbal product. The structure of this compound was elucidated by liquid chromatography-photodiode array-mass spectrometry (LC-PDA-MS), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), high-resolution MS, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses. The compound was finally identified as (4-ethyl-1-naphthalenyl)(2-methyl-1-pentyl-1 H-indol-3-yl)methanone (JWH-213), an indole-based cannabinoid receptor ligand. To our knowledge, this is the first finding of JWH-213 as a designer drug in a herbal product. The quantitative LC-PDA analysis showed that the JWH-213 content in the product was 252 mg/pack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]