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View the July/August Issue of Cannabis Science and Technology!

MM411's Journey: From Grassroots Beginnings to Global Cannabis Education Leader

A Better Cannabis Product Testing System

Understanding Aspergillus Contamination in Cannabis Flowers and the Risks to Immunocompromised Individuals

Topics

Cannabidiol (CBD)

Quality Control and Quality Assurance (QA and QC)

1rem

Authors

A case study that demonstrates the utility and necessity of environmental screening in a cannabis production and processing facility.

Environmental Screening of a Cannabis Production and Processing Facility:  A Comparison of an Environmental DNA Microarray and Traditional Microbiological Plating Methods

 presented the 27th installment in their monthly webinar series When Things Go Wrong. This episode titled, “Cannabis Cornucopia: Cultivating Abundance through Collaboration and Equity” featured guest speakers Ernest Toney, founder of BIPOCann and Dominique Mendiola, Senior Director at Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division & Natural Medicine Division and President of the Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA), and was moderated by Bethany Moore, Director of Content Strategy and Market Growth at the GMP Collective.

The theme of this webinar was the importance of collaboration, support networks, and supporting minority and underserved entrepreneurs in the industry for the benefit of all stakeholders. The first discussion point in the webinar focused on social equity and the challenges that social equity operators face. Ernest Toney defined social equity as “creating a process that is focused on fairness, justice, and giving people equitable access to opportunities to participate in the industry. That can look like policies that create pathways for entrepreneurs to participate and helping those communities and individuals, who were most negatively impact impacted [by prohibition], have an opportunity to participate.” Dominique Mendiola also noted the impact of creating deliberate discussions on progressing social equity opportunities beyond licensing eligibility and how people can access the resources available. She also noted the value of exploring learning opportunities and ways to increase stakeholder engagement and collaboration, specifically noting a social equity workshop with 

, Board Chair of the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA). David Vaillencourt, CEO and founder of the GMP Collective, noted the ASTM International D37 subcommittee on diversity, equity, and inclusion as part an example of how to create a framework for social equity in the industry.

The next topic for discussion addressed how operators, regulators, and lawmakers could come together to advocate for improvement and change. Toney pointed out that in the federal rescheduling deliberations with the DEA, out of all who were selected to participate and provide feedback in the rescheduling discussion, there was no representation from a minority-focused organization. He stated, “If you don't have a voice from the people in the communities that have been most negatively impacted at the federal level, then we are intentionally repeating the same mistakes that got us to where we were in the first place. That's something I would like to see change.” Mendiola elaborated on regulators contributing to conversations that require collaboration. “We want a seat at the table to support the conversation around changes that we may be responsible for implementing,” she explained. “We focus on public health and safety, and that's just not limited to consumers, but also occupational safety and community safety. Those are areas that we want to make sure that we continue to have authority to respond to quickly, to maintain the integrity of our framework and continue to progress things forward in a really meaningful and productive way, and that requires collaboration with all voices.” Feedback from operators is also crucial for adapting to the constant changes in the industry, she added. Vaillencourt recommended that all stakeholders make data-driven decisions and engage early and often in policymaking decisions.

The panelists next discussed real-life examples of opportunities to share supportive programs. Toney discussed a mentorship program between the state of Colorado and BIPOCANN to offer grants to social equity applicators and guided structure to support the development of their business. He added, “I love the idea of creating ecosystems that provide accessible tools, knowledge, and resources, because at the end, it's going to help everybody win. What comes out of that is data. Now we can say, ‘these are the direct impacts of how those dollars were used, the real impacts of offering these programs and resources to boost businesses.’ You can take that back to regulators and other operators, and say, ‘this is an investment that you should continue to work on.’” He also suggested creating more pathways, such as scholarships, for more people to attend cannabis conferences as a way to promote the sharing of resources and knowledge. Mendiola explained examples of regulators providing proactive ways to support compliance through public-facing resources, education, and community outreach.

The next discussion topic focused on look at strategies for growth and how to reframe challenges as opportunities for collective success. Toney mentioned initiatives from the MCBA engaging with communities across the country and explained why businesses should be incorporating collaboration into their long-term goals for the future. Mendiola explained how CANNRA’s External Stakeholder Meetings bring many people together for tough yet valuable conversations where they can learn from one another. She also noted the importance of regulators continually reflecting on their requirements and ensuring that those rules are up-to-date and streamlined. Vaillencourt noted the importance of stakeholders realizing that they do not operate in silos: “It's about learning and sharing information. That's the only way we can move forward. If you take anything away from this today, it's to be willing to have hard conversations, ask questions, and have an open mind.”

Watch the full recording of this episode here

This month’s GMP Collective webinar focused on how collaboration within the industry can lead to overall growth and success.

Topic

Equity and Growth in the Cannabis Industry: Insights from a GMP Collective Webinar

 presented their 25th installment of the webinar series When Things Go Wrong. This episode, titled, “Croptober: Crucial Best Practices for Harvest Season,” featured guest speakers Alex Cass, Manager of Plant Sciences at Native Roots, and Nelson Oldham Associate Director of Post Harvest at Native Roots, and was moderated by Bethany Moore, Director of Content Strategy and Market Growth at the GMP Collective.

The first topic addressed was the ideal drying and curing process for cannabis, including key factors that cultivators should focus on to avoid issues. Nelson Oldham described the two processes and the overlaps between them. For the drying process, he noted the importance of starting with clean flower, environmental controls, temperature and humidity, standard operating processes, testing the buds for level of dryness, and measuring the level of moisture and water activity. For the curing process, he noted the continuing importance of environmental controls and temperature and humidity, plus how to avoid the proliferation of microbes and molds. Alex Cass elaborated on how to handle fungi and bacteria and how to prevent degradation or loss of cannabinoids and terpenes, or other aromatic compounds.

“As a grower, we all have a bunch of cheesy sayings when it comes to drying and curing, Nelson stated. “One of my favorite sayings is, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ and if you're being diligent with your setup, if you're being diligent with scouting and ensuring that you're not putting unhealthy plants into your drying space, you'll be setting yourself up for success.”

Next, Oldham discussed mistakes seen the curing process and how to avoid them. He described the results seen between several different types of containers for storage or curing, burping containers during curing, and steps to ensure quality control. Cass noted the role of packaging. To provide a real-life example of what do when things go wrong, Oldham described the steps taken during a recent power outage at their facility to ensure the quality of the plants and products.

Cass described how the harvest season will impact the supply chain in the cannabis industry. He explained how processing facilities and areas can become hard to find in October due to bottlenecks, how schedules help stagger harvest and production, and some of the challenges and solutions outdoor facilities might face. He also explained which environmental factors—including water activity, temperature, and proper handlings and storage—are crucial to mitigating contamination risk of the final product. He also elaborated on steps employees can take to reduce contamination risk, including protective equipment and workflow movement. Oldham expanded on this by explaining standard operating procedures and employee training.

One of the questions from attendees focused on products being labeled as irradiated, remediated, or decontaminated, and specifically, should consumers know that that product has been treated in such a way? Cass explained the importance of protecting and educating the consumer, especially when combating misinformation. “I think that we should get as much information to the consumer as possible, but I think that we should also look at ways that we can educate the consumer, because, in my opinion, irradiation is a value add. I think that it increases the quality of our product. I think it increases our shelf life and safety for the consumer, and it is no small cost to our organization.”

In preparation for the outdoor cannabis harvest, this episode provided guidance on ensuring a successful production process. 

Getting Ready for Croptober: Best Practices Discussed in GMP Collective Webinar

 presented its last episode in a three-part webinar series, “Cannabis as Harm Reduction Alternative.” The event was hosted by Dr. Marion McNabb, Founder and President of the CCOE with guest speakers Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care provider at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Andrew DeAngelo, co-founder of Harborside and the Last Prisoner Project. The Massachusetts-based CCOE is a nonprofit that brings together many diverse entities to conduct research studies, education programs, and document best practices. This webinar series aimed to translate findings from CCOE’s recent research study into practical applications for clinicians, patients, and policy makers. In this hour-long episode, all three presenters shared their recommendations for evidence-based suggestions for integrating cannabis in reducing harm in light of the ongoing opioid epidemic.

The first part of the webinar provided a summary of results from the 2023 CCOE survey “Cannabis as an Alternative Therapy,” which asked participants about their substance use and cannabis use and interest. Dr. McNabb then explained the current efforts the alleviate the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts and how cannabis can be a tool in these efforts. She stated, “I think this is a great opportunity to start to really destigmatize the role that cannabis can play. And as a result, we have developed some policy recommendations.”

For the second part of the webinar, the presenters provided detailed input and wide-ranging perspectives on these policy recommendations. For the first two policies, recurring themes discussed included the need for data-based decisions, for finding common ground, and for educating all healthcare providers regardless of their views on cannabis. The presenters also shared how they have seen cannabis policies change for better and worse over the past years.

When examining the possibility of donation programs (policy 3), Dr. Grinspoon stated, “I think it really helps people suffering from different addictions, not just opioid addiction, but from alcohol addiction. I think donations are a really good idea. There's no reason not to do them. Medical cannabis can't be another treatment just for the well-to-do; it has to be available to everyone. Poverty is a real risk factor for addiction, but you don't have to be poor to be addicted.” Both presenters agreed that health insurance should cover medical cannabis. DeAngelo described the medical donation programs from the first years that Harborside Health Center, opened in California in 2006, and how policies have changed in less beneficial ways. He stated, “Whatever Massachusetts decides to do with this program on a public policy, learn from California—make it as least restrictive as possible. Don't worry about diversion, worry about access. Because for every day you don't have a program like this in the state, there are people turning to Valium and Percocet and there are people that are perhaps overdosing.”

For research projects to gauge the cost savings assessment and potential of cannabis as a harm reduction tool (policies 4 and 5), DeAngelo stated, “cannabis is a powerful harm reduction tool. It is going to save lives and is going to save money for the state and for insurance companies and for the feds and for the healthcare system overall. You're talking about a medicine that somebody can grow on their balcony, if need be, or hopefully access in not too difficult a way. So when we have data that supports this really powerful harm reduction tool, then it can be used more widely as a harm reduction tool and some of that data can be then used to develop the consensus we need.”

The presenters also discussed the potential effects of cannabis as a Schedule III drug rather than a Schedule I drug. Both Dr. Grinspoon and DeAngelo agreed that descheduling rather than rescheduling would be more beneficial. Rescheduling, DeAngelo noted, would “create a lot more access and a faster road to consensus.” Dr. Grinspoon explained that while rescheduling is a step in the right direction, he questioned how it would help medical cannabis patients be better able to access their medicine. Dr. McNabb shared 

findings from a 2023 survey showing who respondents trusted most to create cannabis policy

, highlighting that more than two thirds stated that trust people with lived experience to make cannabis laws.

In offering one last piece of advice for the policymakers, DeAngelo explained how policies should be integrated at both state and local levels. Dr. Grinspoon stated, “cannabis as a harm reduction tool is really the humane and compassionate thing to do…no matter what, it's going to be an essential component of how we treat a whole range of addictions. We just don't know exactly how to best use it.”

Read a summary of the first episode for a 

, and a summary of the second installment for 

insights into clinical implications for integrating cannabis as a harm reduction tool

The final installment of this webinar series discussed recommendations for new policies integrating cannabis into harm reduction efforts. 

Cannabis for Harm Reduction: Recommendations for Future Policies

From simple DIY to lessons learned from mainstream agriculture to chemical discoveries, extraction techniques are driving more product innovation.

The search to isolate more and more cannabinoids is driving extraction development. That’s been a trend for years (1).

But there is also a search for better methods of extraction (read: cleaner, greener) and more focus on extracting specific cannabinoids, as their value to human wellness is explored. Newer concentrate products, such as badder and cured resin—made using a solvent within a pressurized closed-loop extraction system—are showing up at dispensaries. They are among the top sellers in the California, Oregon, and Nevada markets (2).

points to the use of extraction methods such as ultrasonic-assisted, microwave-assisted, supercritical fluid, and pressurized liquid extraction processes as greener options than conventional extraction processes, because they reduce the need for synthetic and organic solvents, cut down on operational time, and produce a better-quality extract with a higher yield (3). Less solvent is used, and extraction times are reduced from conventional methods.

That’s all good for the recreational market. But the potential recent rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, announced in April 2024, will drive the search for a reproducible, pharmaceutical-quality cannabis product that will drive further innovation.

This installment of the “Tech Innovations” column will discuss new methods and lab processes to do more targeted cannabis extraction. There is also a growing need to accurately measure homogeneity in the cannabis product, especially for medicinal cannabis, and that begins in the extraction process.

Extraction technology in the cannabis industry is becoming part of the global sustainability efforts, with the goal of developing medicinal preparations from the biomass of cannabis. That biomass extraction technology is becoming standard operating procedure for mainstream cash crops, with interesting product payoffs. But the road to getting there in the cannabis industry is full of obstacles.

The amount of research into cannabis waste is extremely small relative to the research into cannabis itself, in part because of the need to control that biomass from getting into the black market. Cannabis biomass has to be destroyed or otherwise disposed of (landfill, composting, anaerobic digestion) instead of recovered as a resource (4).

Waste valorization (5) has been a research interest of Josh Katz, senior research and development scientist at Trulieve (6). “We grow all of this biomass,” Katz explained. “We reduce the volume of the mass by a certain amount, but it's still a gigantic amount of biomass that we either have to throw away or compost or whatever. There's a lot of interesting chemistry out there that can take this spent material and digest it into commercially interesting products that the cannabis industry hasn't even thought of.”

The biomass of cannabis are the so-called non-utilized components of the plant, such as the roots, which can be rich in polyphenols, and other bio-active compounds, which can be used for health promoting products.

To get an idea of what can be created through extraction of biomass, the cannabis industry should take note of how it works for some mainstream cash crops.

The annual yield of banana peels is 60 million tons; orange peels 10 million tons; avocado pits and peels 4 million tons; and wine by-products more than 14.6 million tons, according to researchers (7).

PeelPioneers, in the Netherlands processes citrus peels into oil, D-limonene. Garden of Natural Solution Co., Ltd. uses an ultrasonic extraction method to produce citrus peel extract with antioxidant effects as a cosmetic ingredient (8). Lianyuan Kangbiotech Co., Ltd. extracts various fruits and fruit peels to obtain sweetener, oils, and polyphenols (9).

Keracol, a company formed by the University of Leeds (10), extracts resveratrol, a natural molecule found in the outer skins of red grapes, which is an antioxidant and known to have protective anti-ageing properties.

Biomass extraction progress is coming to cannabis. There is an extraction method for working with biomass that comes from Milestone on their Ethos platform (11). “It doesn’t even extract cannabinoids,” Katz said. “It’s a terpene extractor. It allows you to take flower immediately after harvest, extract the terpenes out of it, dry the biomass out, re-extract the cannabinoids and you can basically make a vape cart out of the biomass of flower that was harvested yesterday.” They have used it in a couple of their products so far, he said. “From a dollars and cents point of view, it's a substantially cheaper route to cannabis-derived terpenes than CO2 extraction is. Throughputs are comparable, and the total terpene content in what comes out is higher than CO2 extraction. It uses a pretty interesting strategy for getting the terpenes out of material that is not unique to cannabis by any stretch of the imagination.”

Aside from biomass, another extraction method in the sustainable camp is pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) (12), a high-throughput and green extraction technique for the sustainable extraction of bioactive compounds from natural sources.

PLE—also called accelerated solvent extraction (ASE), pressurized fluid extraction (PFE), pressurized hot solvent extraction (PHSE), high-pressure solvent extraction (HPSE), high-pressure high-temperature solvent extraction (HPHTSE), and subcritical solvent extraction (SSE) (13)—is one method of extraction that is easy to use and efficient, using elevated temperatures and moderate to high pressures.

PLE works with a reduced amount of solvent, with the ability to extract a wide range of compounds—ideal for a plant like cannabis where there are more than 550 chemical compounds in cannabis, with more than 100 phytocannabinoids being identified in addition to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) (14).

Compared to a conventional extraction performed at ambient pressure, the PLE high pressure maintains the solvent in liquid-phase. This improves mass transfer of the extraction by increasing the solubility and decreasing limiting factors such as viscosity and surface tension.

As new extraction ideas and technologies gain traction, it’s important to understand that simple THC extraction and infusion into an edible product arose from an at-home DIY process nearly anyone with basic kitchen know-how can whip up.

First important point to know is that preparing cannabis infused foods is not a simple matter of mixing in crushed cannabis to a brownie mix, for example, and loading that mixture into the oven.

The reason is that THC is not water-soluble, and the human body is composed of up to 60% water (15). But THC is fat soluble and can bind to fat molecules, such as those in oils and other fatty ingredients. THC oil can be mixed or baked into product such as a brownie or cake by making it bind with an oil—generally olive oil, butter, or coconut oil.

To begin the extraction process and get the THC to bind with oil, the cannabis is first ground up, then put on a baking sheet and baked at 230 °F for about an hour to decarbolize it and to activate the compounds (THC and CBD). It is then taken out and allowed to cool.

A separate glass jar with a lid is then put into a large pot. The pot is filled up halfway with water. The now decarbed cannabis is put into the jar, the jar is filled up with the chosen oil nearly to the top, and the lid is screwed on fairly tightly. Then the water in the pot is heated to about 190° F and left to simmer for about three hours. It’s left to cool.

The decarbed cannabis is then filtered out of the oil using some sort of strainer (cheesecloth works), and the oil is poured into a container for future use as a cooking oil to make any THC-infused meal or treat.

Extraction from flower into a dab is also a simple procedure. There are YouTube videos demonstrating how anybody can extract rosin using a simple hair straightener and some parchment paper (16). And old tech is the foundation to some new cannabis extraction tech. One example is short path distillation (17). A short path distillation looks very similar in execution to what most people imagine to be a simple distillation apparatus, Katz said. “You have a big flask, you're heating it. It's boiling, compounds are evaporated. You get a vapor, and the vapor contains a mixture of what was in what you started boiling. The composition of that vapor will change over the course of the distillation. And when I say it changes, I mean it has higher or lower relative fraction of the thing that you're interested in, for example, the cannabinoids.”

Short path distillation is a dynamic process, starting roughly at room temperature, then heating up the cannabis. “The more volatile things come off first, such as any residual solvents, and the terpenes. When they stop coming over, there's usually overlap between the first part of the cannabinoids coming over and the last part of the terpenes coming over,” Katz mentioned. “Part of the skill of extraction is knowing when to make the cut at the overlap.”

A wiped film evaporator (18) is a variation of short film distillation that reduces oil exposure to heat. Wiped-film short path molecular distillation is common in the cannabis industry for separating cannabinoids from terpenes and heavy compounds. It’s a process to get cannabinoid-rich distillate from the molecular distillation process without affecting cannabinoid quality.

“With the wiped film distillation process, you have basically set your parameters so that only the thing that you're interested in, distills over,” Katz explained. “Everything that is more volatile than that will get caught in a cold trap. Anything less volatile than that will get passed on to the residue. So wiped film evaporators are an industrialized approach to short path evaporation. A wiped film evaporator allows you to process a lot more oil a lot faster.”

Another high-tech process is the use of a microwave (MW) reactor developed by Ethos Lean specifically for the decarboxylation of the acidic cannabinoids in cannabis inflorescences prepared for extraction into oil. Both of the steps to produce the oily extract with the MW system were carried out in the Ethos Lean's cavity with special accessories: a rotating drum for the decarboxylation process and a glass reactor with a stirrer for the extraction step, according to an article in 

In collaboration with a hospital pharmacy, the efficiency of the MW device was evaluated by comparing the results obtained with those of exhaustive decarboxylation in a conventional oven and ethanol extraction. A comparison was also made with conventional procedures in olive oil. “Thanks to the rotating drum, which is sensitive to dielectric heating, the complete and homogeneous decarboxylation of phytocannabinoids was rapidly achieved (30 min, 120 °C) without releasing the characteristic intense odor into the laboratory,” the article concluded.

Another new method of extraction was discussed at the 2024 Cannabis Science Conference by Anthony Repay, Laboratory Director of Method Testing Labs (20), involving the use of polysorbate 80 to extract cannabis and distill it into solution.

Polysorbate 80 is a synthetic compound that is commonly used as an emulsifier in a variety of foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical products. It's made from ethylene oxide, which is petroleum-based compound. “Why on earth would we go with the cosmetics method when we're dealing with something that is inhaled?” Repay said. “It’s about applicable methods, and things that are similar.”

He demonstrated the mixing process via a video during his presentation, showing where there was a significant association with polysorbate 80 percentage and cannabinoid concentration in a 1-in-10 dilution. “So as the relative percentage of polysorbate 80 in the solution increases, there's a corresponding increase in the amount of Delta-9 THC extracted,” he explained. “Based on this data, we can conclude that there's a statistically significant relationship between the concentration of polysorbate 80 and the extraction of Delta-9 THC, confirming the success of the extraction process.”

“For me, I think we need to get to a point where we get to an extraction efficiency and really see where it starts to tail off,” Repay expressed. “But I'd love to see at what level we start to see a true extraction efficiency where it comes into a linear kind of an algorithmic growth,” he mentioned. “The microbes, like 

 or others, showed no significant impact by increasing concentration of polysorbate 80. At the end of the day, I think we all agree that science needs more data points.”

The news coming down from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in late April 2024 about rescheduling cannabis (21) appeared at first to be a shot in the arm for the industry. While it is generally welcomed news, and practically speaking, is likely to be years away from implementation, it will cause tech innovators from cultivators to extractors to keep a wary eye on what it means to their operations, and to the designs of the processors and equipment they use.

With a rescheduled cannabis, making compliant cannabis products using one of the currently available extractors could be a dodgy prospect if science, the regulatory process, and physicians who may soon be able to prescribe cannabis, try to understand different medical cannabis extract products. “Unfortunately, the labs are going to continue to be in a position where they have to make a choice between maintaining scientific integrity, or doing what they need to do to chase regulations that may or may not make sense, but in a way to keep their doors open,” explained Susan Audino, a chemist/chemometrician and independent consultant to chemical and biological laboratories, during the 2024 Cannabis Science Conference which took place in Kansas City, Missouri. “‘So how do I cut corners to meet these regulations that don't make any sense and still maintain a customer base so I can be not just a profitable business, but an open business?’ I see that conflict is going to continue.”

“Opening up this opportunity for research will begin to provide more data to support the contentions from the medical field right now that are using cannabis at any level,” Audino said. “Right now, we know that it works. But if I asked to see the empirical data to demonstrate why and how it works, there's been a teeny tiny amount of information out there, if any. So, I hope rescheduling will open up the opportunity for better research to improve the vast knowledge of empirical data to help support what we've been working with and knowing for a long time.”

But there is still an issue about how regulators do their job right now.

For example, with Delta-8, regulators are looking at the input—what is left over from the synthesis of Delta-8—not the output, Audino said. “That's the detrimental part to the regulatory structure and the interface between regulations and laboratory testing,” Audino explained. “They have to be in alignment. Regulations need to be founded and justified by appropriate science, not the other way around. Because right now science is chasing its tail.”

“We don't know what is going to be rescheduled,” Katz said. “Because Delta-9 THC is a tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA). It's going to be really hard to say if we should change our workflows until we know what is actually going to get rescheduled. I understand why everybody's up in arms right now, because it seems like the sluice gate has been open. But I just caution people not to get too squirrely.”

Hodes, D. New Extraction Technologies Lining Up to Be Game-Changers. 

https://www.cannabissciencetech.com/view/new-extraction-technologies-lining-be-game-changers

Best Selling Cannabis Concentrates in California 

https://www.headset.io/the-best-selling-cannabis-products/california-concentrates

Lazarjani, M.P., Young, O., Kebede, L. et al. Processing and Extraction Methods of Medicinal Cannabis: A Narrative Review. 

https://doi.org/10.1186/s42238-021-00087-9

Baroutian, S.; Bror, R.; Randhawa, P.; Robertson, K.; Star, C. Opportunities and challenges in waste management within the medicinal cannabis sector. 

 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2023.116639

https://www.aiche.org/topics/energy/waste-valorization.

Laibach, N, Chapter 5. Extraction of Valuable Components From Waste Biomass. Waste to Food. 2022, 147-168.

 https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-929-9_5

https://www.milestonesci.com/microwave-extraction-systems/ 

Alvarez-Rivera, G.; Ballesteros, D.; Bueno, M.; Ibañez, E.; Mendiola, J.; Chapter 13 - Pressurized Liquid Extraction. 

 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-816911-7.00013-X

Barp, L.; Moret, S.; Visnjevec, A. Pressurized Liquid Extraction: A Powerful Tool to Implement Extraction and Purification of Food Contaminants. 

Parker, L.; Rock, E. Constituents of Cannabis Sativa. 

, 2020, 1-13. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-57369-0_1

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-human-body#:~:text=Up%20to%2060%25%20of%20the,bones%20are%20watery%3A%2031%25

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rosin+extraction+and+simple+hair+straightener

https://precisionextraction.com/2021/05/guide-to-short-path-distillation/

Addo, P.; Bilodeau, S.; Gladu-Gallant, F.; Lefsrud, M.; MacPherson, S.; Orsat, V.; Paris, M.; Sagili, S. Optimization of Wiped-Film Short Path Molecular Distillation for Recovery of Cannabinoids from Cannabis Oil Using Response Surface Methodology. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2023.116442

Barge, A.; Binello, A.; Carnaroglio, D.; Cravotto, G.; DiFranco, M.; Gandlevskly, N.; Rosso, E.; Visinoni, F. A New Prototype Reactor for the Fast Microwave-Assisted Decarboxylation and Extraction of Cannabinoids in Olive Oil from Cannabis Inflorescences. 

 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2023.101303

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-repay-m-s-2b201696/ 

Miller, Z.; Goodman, J.; Mustian, J.; Whitehurst, L. US Poised to Ease Restrictions on Marijuana in Historic Shift, But It’ll Remain Controlled Substance 

https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8

 has written for many cannabis publications, and organized or moderated sessions at national and international cannabis trade shows. He was voted the 2018 Journalist of the Year by Americans for Safe Access, the world’s largest medical cannabis advocacy organization.

Hodes, D., Extraction Tech Inspires New Product Development, 

A look at how extraction techniques are driving more product innovation and whether the rescheduling of cannabis will affect extraction.


Benjamin A. Katchman

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