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Jun 3, 2019 | Blogs, Food / Beverage | 0 comments
Welcome to the second in a series of blogs from the cannabis team at SCIEX, designed to bring you up to speed and put you in the lead of the recently legalized cannabis market in Canada.
In the first blog, we introduced the Cannabis Act and what it means for the industry. Here we explore product safety and the related analytical testing requirements by answering your common questions.
Why Is Safety up There as a Top Priority?‘Protecting public health and safety by allowing adults access to legal cannabis’ is one of three top priorities of the Act. Regulation aims to ensure that cannabis is safe by eliminating potentially dangerous cultivation and processing practices. Strict rules and standards for producers cover, amongst other things, the types of cannabis products allowed for sale, packaging and labeling requirements, prohibiting the use of certain ingredients and good production practices.
How Will These Safety and Quality Standards Be Monitored?The short answer is through testing. There are strict rules throughout the supply chain from cultivation to sale, and rigorous testing has been federally mandated by Health Canada before cannabis products are made available to the public. In other words, legal cannabis products must meet the grade.
What Tests Need to Be Done and Why?Relative to other industries, safety and regulatory standards for cannabis testing are in their infancy. In Canada, there are already rules for testing in place for medical marijuana, but these are expected to become more comprehensive and stringent.
Laboratories certified for analytical testing must conduct all tests using validated methods on every lot or batch of cannabis to ensure requirements are met. Testing depends on the cannabis product class, but will typically include potency, purity, and safety.
Different provinces and territories will set acceptable limits through localized cannabis regulation.
How Can Testing Help Improve Supply?As cannabis sales shift to licensed outlets and more producers receive their federal stamp of approval, the demand for testing services is expected to rocket. Commercial cannabis testing is very competitive, and legalization will put pressure on the scientific community – who need the right instruments and methods to stay ahead of the curve and ahead of demand.
Using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), SCIEX has pioneered standardized testing methods to analyze potency, terpene, pesticides, and contaminants to Health Canada regulations.
To find out how LC-MS/MS helps analytical testing labs, regulatory laboratories, and licensed producers to clear the bottlenecks and supply safe, legal cannabis products to the Canadian market, check out the next blog in our series.
Produced by certain moulds, thriving in crops such as grain, nuts and coffee, mycotoxins have contaminated agriculture and food production industries for a long time. To intensify the challenge, mycotoxins are resilient, not easily broken down and ensuring the safety of food supply chains requires comprehensive solutions and we are here to share those solutions with you.
Electron-Activated Dissociation (EAD) is transforming the fields of metabolomics and lipidomics by providing enhanced fragmentation techniques that offer deeper insights into molecular structures. In September, Technology Networks hosted a webinar, “Enhancing Mass-Based Omics Analysis in Model Organisms,” featuring Dr. Valentina Calabrese from the Institute of Analytical Sciences at the University of Lyon. Valentina shared her insights on improving omics-based mass spectrometry analysis for toxicology studies using model organisms, particularly in metabolomics and lipidomics. This blog explores the additional functionalities EAD offers, its benefits in untargeted workflows, its incorporation into GNPS and molecular networking, and the future role it could play in these scientific domains.
Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has gained significant attention in the clinical laboratory due to its ability to provide best-in-class sensitivity and specificity for the detection of clinically relevant analytes across a wide range of assays. For clinical laboratories new to LC-MS/MS, integrating this technology into their daily routine operations may seem like a daunting task. Developing a clear outline and defining the requirements needed to implement LC-MS/MS into your daily operations is critical to maximize the productivity and success of your clinical laboratory.
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