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Article
Pine Rosin as a Toxic Cannabis Extract Adulterant
ChemRxiv
  • Jiries Meehan-Attrash, Portland State University
  • Robert Strongin, Portland State University
Document Type
Pre-Print
Publication Date
1-20-2020
Subjects
  • Pine rosin -- Toxicity,
  • Cannabis extracts -- Additives -- Analysis,
  • Vaping -- Health aspects,
  • EVALI
Disciplines
Abstract

Pine rosin (colophony) has been identified as a new adulterant in cannabis oil. Its inhalation toxicity poses a significant health concern to users. For example, pine rosin fumes are released during soldering, and have been cited as a causative agent of occupational asthma. Symptoms also include desquamation of bronchial epithelium, which has also been observed in EVALI patients. The sample analyzed herein was acquired from a cannabis industry source, also contains medium chain triglycerides and oleamide, the latter of which is a hypnotic that is commonly found in the synthetic marijuana product Spice, or K2. A combination of NMR and HPLC-ESIMS was used to unambiguously identify major pine rosin ingredients such as abietic and other resin acids. Comparison to commercial samples of pure pine rosin confirmed the assignment.

Description

This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND) Attribution License, which permits copying and redistribution of the article, and creation of adaptations, all for non-commercial purposes.

The Supplementary Appendix is included here as a supplemental file.

DOI
10.26434/chemrxiv.11634303.v1
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30837
Citation Information
Meehan-Atrash, Jiries; Strongin, Robert (2020): Pine Rosin as a Toxic Cannabis Extract Adulterant. ChemRxiv. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.11634303.v1