Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research (ISSN : 0975-7384)

High Performance Thin Layer Chromatographic Detection of Cannabis in Forensic Interest

Author(s): UK Kulkarni, KV Kulkarni, RK Pardeshi and DV Mane

Cannabis, also known as Marijuana, and other forms of cannabis plant (bhang, ganja, and Charas) are very frequently submitted to forensic laboratories under THC narcotic drug and psychotropic substances act 1985. In routine cases the identification of Cannabinoids in marihuana is achieved unequivocally by the ‘three-parameter approach [Morphology, color tests and thin-layer chromatography (TLC)] as suggested by Coutts and Jones’. Cannabis is one of the most commonly abused drugs worldwide. Detection of cannabis is a great challenge for forensic scientists. Although the instrumental methods are sensitive as they are also expensive and there are limitations to their use in routine forensic work owing to the large number of samples (involving urine samples) to be handled. In this study, HPTLC method was found to be high- throughput, sensitive, reproducible and cost-effective compared to other methods. In this study we report 10% NaOH followed by p-Anisidine reagent and ammonium metavanadate as a new, specific chromogenic reagent for HPTLC detection of Cannabis.

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