Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/11/scientists-claim-100-accurate.html
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Mmmm K …
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Scientists claim 100% accurate way to tell pot from hemp: lasers
Do you really want a bunch of stoners playing with lasers?
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If the accuracy were 100%, it could differentiate between 0.2999999% THC legal hemp, and 0.30000001% THC illegal weed.
Which is to say, I don’t buy that claim.
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This is good. No more capricious cops in Wisconsin deciding what is “hemp” and what is “cannabis”. In case anyone is unclear about this - they are the same plant. The only difference is the amount of THC in it. They look and smell the same, especially if the hemp is grown for CBD. Gas chromatography takes a good half an hour once you prepare the samples and can only be done reliably in a lab. Fast, reliable field tests are a good thing.
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As in, if I point a big ass laser at my dealer when he hands me the bag, and he doesn’t suddenly have second thoughts about the transaction, it ain’t hemp?
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I know a much easier and fun way using lasers. Roll up a fatty of the unknown herb and smoke it in the planetarium parking lot. If Laser Floyd doesn’t blow your freakin mind, definitely hemp.
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Just add it to the list of other 100% accurate things police do, like roadside drug kits and behavioral detection, which work all the time with 100% accuracy.
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Is this not what they do already in forensic labs to confirm street tests? If not, why isn’t it? Laser spectography is hardly a new science.
Well balls. There goes a research project. =/
Seriously though, nice work.
(still miffed I got scooped)
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Why are they teasing me like that?
A device like this could be priceless.
SME here: It’s using Raman spectroscopy and some chemometric analysis. Raman is great, because it (like IR) is a vibrational spectroscopy that can provide a unique “fingerprint” for each molecule.
BUT, it’s hard to get good, unambiguous spectra in complex, biological samples. There’s many different molecules (chemical noise), and a LOT of the molecules are really really similar. That’s where the chemometrics comes in…it’s essentially a multivariate analysis that allows you to use more of your spectral information, and or filter out some of the stuff that you don’t want. Like how you can listen to JUST the strings when an orchestra plays.
So. If you point a laser at a random leaf, you’re going to get a signal that looks like garbage. Maybe a big hump. But nothing you can just look at and go “hey, there’s THC in there, better get the cuffs.”
So, why not do it now? The TLDR is “Laser easy, math hard.”
(Usually a lab is going to use a Gas Chromatograph/ Mass Spectrometer)
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Handheld Raman spectrometers already exist. No need to wait years for one. You would just need some material to do comparison calibrations.
ETA: It looks like FTIR curves for THC are close to linear with concentration without confounding peaks. So you don’t even need lasers - just an off-the-shelf FTIR spectrometer and a little know-how. Hey Texas! Quit being cheap and just hire some field analytical chemists with the hemp tax money you’re already drooling over.
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Kingsmen 2 is:
A. Unbearable, or
B. Hilarious
If you answered A, then it’s hemp.
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Duh. Anyone that’s gotten stoned and went to a Pink Floyd laser light show could tell you that.
Too soon.
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Scientist 1: You feeling anything, bro?
Scientist 2: Maybe. I wish there were some way to figure out how strong this stuff is.
Scientist 1: Oh my god, bro…
Scientist 2: What?
Scientist 1: Bro, listen…
Scientist 2: What?
Scientist 1: Bro…
Scientist 2: What!?
Scientist 1: Lasers.
Scientist 2: …Bro.
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