Classification of Cannabis Cultivars Marketed in Canada for Medical Purposes and Growth Trends of the North American Medical Cannabis Industry

The recent legalization of cannabis for medical purposes in North America requires rigorous standardization of its phytochemical composition in the interest of consumer safety and medicinal efficacy. To utilize medicinal cannabis as a predictable medicine, it is crucial to classify hundreds of cultivars with respect to dozens of therapeutic cannabinoids and terpenes, as opposed to the current industrial or forensic classifications that only consider the primary cannabinoids tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). Labs-Mart recently developed and validated analytical methods using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC-DAD) to quantify cannabinoids and gas chromatography with mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) to quantify terpenes in cannabis raw material. The methods were then used to classify 32 cannabis samples from two licensed producers into four clusters based on the content of 10 cannabinoids and 14 terpenes. The classification results were confirmed by cluster analysis and principal component analysis in tandem, which were distinct from those using only THC and CBD. Three potential trends are postulated for the medical cannabis industry in North America, the success of which may rely on a systematic classification of cannabis cultivars and the establishment of reliable testing methods on cannabis raw materials and cannabis extract products. These unprecedented growth areas include the increasing prevalence of cannabis oil and edible products, the potential of synergism with other analgesics, and the utilization of each part of cannabis plant.