The Phytochemical Diversity of Commercial Cannabis in the United States

Abstract

The legal status of Cannabis is changing, fueling an increased diversity of Cannabis-derived products. Because Cannabis contains dozens of chemical compounds with potential psychoactive or medicinal effects, understanding its phytochemical diversity is crucial. The legal Cannabis industry heavily markets products to consumers based on widely used labelling systems purported to predict the effects of different Cannabis "strains." We analyzed the cannabinoid and terpene content of tens of thousands of commercial Cannabis samples across six US states, finding distinct chemical phenotypes (chemotypes) which are reliably present. After careful descriptive analysis of the phytochemical diversity and comparison to the commercial labels commonly attached to Cannabis samples, we show that commercial labels do not consistently align with the observed chemical diversity. However, certain labels are statistically overrepresented for specific chemotypes. These results have important implications for the classification of commercial Cannabis, the design of animal and human research, and the regulation of legal Cannabis marketing.

A Comprehensive Phytochemical Analysis of Terpenes, Polyphenols and Cannabinoids, and Micromorphological Characterization of 9 Commercial Varieties of Cannabis sativa L.

“…CBD is nowadays of great interest for several applications, and less investigated minor cannabinoids, such as cannabigerol (CBG), can be equally promising on a pharmaceutical level. Specific chemovars characterized by other cannabinoids represent a challenging research area and can be the source of new appealing products [ 29 ]. For example, the French cultivar Santhica, characterized by a significant CBG content, could be employed to develop new hemp strains as reservoirs of this cannabinoid [ 30 ].…”