Category: Forensic Toxicology
Does CBD Prevent Lasting THC Effects? What an Adolescent Mouse Experiment Actually Tested
Concurrent CBD prevented several THC-associated behavioral changes in one male-mouse experiment. The study does not establish that adding CBD to human cannabis use prevents lasting cognitive harm, or that CBD reverses an injury after it has developed. Age and treatment were built into the design Murphy and colleagues treated male…
Can Cannabis Cause Acute Hallucinations Without Explaining Every Such Event? A Controlled-Dosing Case
A carefully documented human case shows that acute hallucinations can occur after THC administration, but it does not establish how often they occur or explain an unrelated person’s symptoms. The distinction between observing an unusual response and estimating population risk is central to this report. What happened during the study?…
Why a Rapid Mass Spectrometry Method Can Work for Some Drugs but Struggle With THC
The words “mass spectrometry” do not guarantee that a rapid method measures every drug accurately. A wooden-tip electrospray study reported promising results for several drugs, while THC and THC-COOH presented important quantitative limitations. A faster route into the instrument The investigators evaluated wooden-tip electrospray ionization mass spectrometry for drugs in…
Portable Raman Testing for THC: Why Saliva Success Does Not Validate a Urine Test
A portable Raman sensor can demonstrate THC detection without establishing a validated forensic test for every biological fluid. Research using diatomaceous surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy shows why saliva and urine require separate evaluation. How the method works The study used a structured diatomaceous substrate to enhance Raman signals and a portable…
Does a Negative Vitreous THC Test Exclude Exposure? Evidence From Tissue Distribution Research
A negative result in one tissue cannot automatically exclude cannabinoid exposure throughout the body. In a controlled pig study, THC was not detected in vitreous humor or dura mater even though other tissues demonstrated its distribution. The result illustrates why specimen choice matters. What the experiment measured Schaefer and colleagues…
Can Postmortem Storage Change a THC Result? Lessons From a Controlled Pig Study
A postmortem cannabinoid concentration can depend on what happened after death as well as exposure before death. A controlled pig experiment examined this problem across sampling times and storage temperatures. It supplies evidence about postmortem change, rather than a formula for reconstructing a person’s earlier THC level. Separating exposure from…
Can Maternal Urine or Saliva Predict THC in Breast Milk?
Maternal urine and saliva did not consistently track breast-milk THC across early postpartum sampling. A small observational study found correlations at the first assessment, but not at later assessments, making one matrix an uncertain substitute for another. Three specimens, two analytes Sandonís and colleagues followed 13 postpartum women with cannabis-positive…
Can CYP2C9 or CYP2C19 Genotyping Explain a Cannabis Blood Result?
A genotype may inform a metabolism hypothesis, but a small controlled-exposure analysis did not establish genotype-specific cannabis blood concentrations or a reliable last-use clock. Predicted enzyme activity and an observed cannabinoid result require separate interpretation. What was analyzed? Schulte and colleagues retrospectively examined samples from 27 people who had undergone…
Why the Same THC Spray Dose Produced Different Concentrations in Older Patients
The same prescribed THC/CBD spray regimen did not produce a uniform concentration-time profile in older patients. Population modeling found substantial variation both between patients and between doses in the same patient. The observed population and regimen Storgaard and colleagues studied 20 older medical patients with poor appetite. Participants received fixed…
Cannabis Cessation in Football Players: Why a One-Year Follow-Up Is Not a Recovery Clock
A small football-player study found better cognitive-task performance after a year of verified abstinence, but it did not determine when recovery occurred. The interval between two assessments is not the same as a measured time-to-recovery. What the study followed Ally and colleagues analyzed 18 male NCAA Division I football players…
What a Nabiximols Safety Registry Can Tell Us About Driving Reports
Reports of improved or worsened driving ability in a treatment registry are not equivalent to standardized driving-test results. A postmarketing nabiximols registry offers useful safety observations while leaving important causal and measurement questions unresolved. The registry design Etges and colleagues described voluntary prescriber reports for 941 patients receiving a specific…
Cannabis and Recognition Memory: False Alarms Are Different From Forgetting
Cannabis-related memory changes can involve accepting an unfamiliar word as familiar, not simply failing to remember a word. A naturalistic study of THC/CBD flower products distinguished recognition accuracy, false alarms, response bias, and reaction time. What the researchers compared Paulich and colleagues randomly assigned participants to THC-dominant, approximately balanced THC/CBD,…
