Screening of (Aminoalkylindols) Cannabinoids in smoking products by GC-EI/MS in Jordan: Liquid-liquid extraction optimization.

Arar, Sharif Husni; ALSoufi, Hakem; Abu-Nameh, Eyad; Deeb, Ahmad; Habahbeh, Ayman

doi:10.21608/ejchem.2019.11591.1737

Screening of (Aminoalkylindols) Cannabinoids in smoking products by GC-EI/MS in Jordan: Liquid-liquid extraction optimization.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of chemistry, School of Science, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

² Forensic Science Laboratory Department, P. O. BOX 142882, Amman, Jordan

³ Department of Chemistry, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, Jordan

⁴ Faculty of Pharmacy,Alzaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

⁵ Anti-Narcotics Department, Amman, Jordan

10.21608/ejchem.2019.11591.1737

Abstract

In this work a screening study in Jordan was conducted on identification of herbal smoking mixtures containing recently new marketed synthetic cannabinoids (aminoalkylindols) (XLR-11, AB-CHMINACA, AB-FUBINACA isomers) which were responsible for a few cases for suicide accidents, individual violent action and few homicides. The smoking items were seized by customs and by the Anti-Narcotics Department in the year 2016/17. Forensic evidences including herbal smoking mixtures, cigarettes, and cigarettes waste were screened for containing these banned drugs employing GC-EI/MS in scan mode with JWH-018 and 5F-ADB as surrogates and individual aminoalkylindols reference standards. The liquid-liquid extraction optimization results indicated that dichloromethane gave the highest recovery for aminoalkylindols in herbal smoking mixtures and methanol for cigarette waste filters. The Results indicated that the marketed herbs were in all sprayed with either XLR-11 (around 45%) or combination of either both XLR-11 and AB-CHMINACA or a combination of XLR-11 and AB-FUBINACA isomers (25%) and the rest was AB-CHMINACA or AB-FUBINACA isomers pure or mixtures. These results were further confirmed by cigarette waste analysis which gave approximate results to herbs or spices. To our knowledge this is the first study of its kind in the MENA region and to be conducted in Jordan with an optimization procedure that is not reported in literature.

Keywords