Fungal Contamination Monitoring in Legal Cannabis Using Ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Health Canada's 's mission to help the people of Canada maintain and improve their health requires rigorous testing of cannabis legal products. The contaminants of cannabis products need to meet the requirements set out in the Cannabis Act and Regulations. Mycotoxins are known cannabis contaminants. They are secondary metabolites produced by fungi that, when exposed to humans, can cause serious health issues. Numerous fungal species have been detected on cannabis, notably, the toxigenic Aspergillus spp, Penicillium spp, and Fusarium spp. These fungal species produce aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, and deoxynivalenol, respectively. To ensure product safety for Canadian consumers, a detection and quantification ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was devised for these mycotoxins. Contrary to other published methods, the present method does not require either costly immunoaffinity columns or isotope-labeled internal standards. The method was validated on multiple samples of cannabis plants. It was shown that accurate quantification in plant samples requires a standard addition curve. Limits of detection and quantification were sufficient for regulatory and monitoring purposes. This method could decrease compliancerelated costs for the legal cannabis industry.