Synthetic cannabinoids in biological specimens: a review of current analytical methods and sample preparation techniques

Synthetic cannabinoids are a new class of chemical drugs capable of modifying human behavior. These products do not contain cannabis, but produce similar effects after consumption. The fact that they are easily accessed, and are many times considered to be harmless, justifies their widespread use among young people. This fact, together with the difficulty in their detection by routine drug tests, makes it extremely important to develop new procedures able to detect and monitor their consumption. The aim of this work is to perform a critical review regarding the human biological samples that can be used for the determination of synthetic cannabinoids, paying special attention to analytical methods and sample preparation techniques. The reviewed articles deal with the determination of synthetic cannabinoids in the context of forensic and toxicological analysis.