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A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates

Vaporization is an increasingly prevalent means to consume cannabis, but there is little guidance for manufacturers or regulators to evaluate additive safety. This paper presents a first-tier framework for regulators and cannabis manufacturers without significant toxicological expertise to conduct r...

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Autores principales: Vreeke, Shawna, Faulkner, David M., Strongin, Robert M., Rufer, Echoleah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9782653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548603
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10120771
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author Vreeke, Shawna
Faulkner, David M.
Strongin, Robert M.
Rufer, Echoleah
author_facet Vreeke, Shawna
Faulkner, David M.
Strongin, Robert M.
Rufer, Echoleah
author_sort Vreeke, Shawna
collection PubMed
description Vaporization is an increasingly prevalent means to consume cannabis, but there is little guidance for manufacturers or regulators to evaluate additive safety. This paper presents a first-tier framework for regulators and cannabis manufacturers without significant toxicological expertise to conduct risk assessments and prioritize additives in cannabis concentrates for acceptance, elimination, or further evaluation. Cannabinoids and contaminants (e.g., solvents, pesticides, etc.) are excluded from this framework because of the complexity involved in their assessment; theirs would not be a first-tier toxicological assessment. Further, several U.S. state regulators have provided guidance for major cannabinoids and contaminants. Toxicological risk assessment of cannabis concentrate additives, like other types of risk assessment, includes hazard assessment, dose–response, exposure assessment, and risk characterization steps. Scarce consumption data has made exposure assessment of cannabis concentrates difficult and variable. Previously unpublished consumption data collected from over 54,000 smart vaporization devices show that 50th and 95th percentile users consume 5 and 57 mg per day on average, respectively. Based on these and published data, we propose assuming 100 mg per day cannabis concentrate consumption for first-tier risk assessment purposes. Herein, we provide regulators, cannabis manufacturers, and consumers a preliminary methodology to evaluate the health risks of cannabis concentrate additives.
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spelling pubmed-97826532022-12-24 A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates Vreeke, Shawna Faulkner, David M. Strongin, Robert M. Rufer, Echoleah Toxics Article Vaporization is an increasingly prevalent means to consume cannabis, but there is little guidance for manufacturers or regulators to evaluate additive safety. This paper presents a first-tier framework for regulators and cannabis manufacturers without significant toxicological expertise to conduct risk assessments and prioritize additives in cannabis concentrates for acceptance, elimination, or further evaluation. Cannabinoids and contaminants (e.g., solvents, pesticides, etc.) are excluded from this framework because of the complexity involved in their assessment; theirs would not be a first-tier toxicological assessment. Further, several U.S. state regulators have provided guidance for major cannabinoids and contaminants. Toxicological risk assessment of cannabis concentrate additives, like other types of risk assessment, includes hazard assessment, dose–response, exposure assessment, and risk characterization steps. Scarce consumption data has made exposure assessment of cannabis concentrates difficult and variable. Previously unpublished consumption data collected from over 54,000 smart vaporization devices show that 50th and 95th percentile users consume 5 and 57 mg per day on average, respectively. Based on these and published data, we propose assuming 100 mg per day cannabis concentrate consumption for first-tier risk assessment purposes. Herein, we provide regulators, cannabis manufacturers, and consumers a preliminary methodology to evaluate the health risks of cannabis concentrate additives. MDPI 2022-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9782653/ /pubmed/36548603 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10120771 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Vreeke, Shawna
Faulkner, David M.
Strongin, Robert M.
Rufer, Echoleah
A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title_full A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title_fullStr A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title_full_unstemmed A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title_short A First-Tier Framework for Assessing Toxicological Risk from Vaporized Cannabis Concentrates
title_sort first-tier framework for assessing toxicological risk from vaporized cannabis concentrates
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9782653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36548603
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxics10120771
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