ABSTRACTCOMPARISON OF GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY AND LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY FOR DISCRIMINATION OF SALVIA DIVINORUM FROM RELATED SALVIA SPECIES USING CHEMOMETRIC PROCEDURESByMonica L. Bugeja Salvia divinorum is a hallucinogenic plant that has recently gained legislative attention due to an increase in its recreational use. S. divinorum and/or its active constituent, salvinorin A, are currently regulated in 26 states, including Michigan. As there are over 900 known Salvia species, discrimination of S. divinorum from other Salvia species is important in a forensic laboratory. Salvinorin A is known to be found only in S. divinorum thus far. Therefore, the presence of salvinorin A, detected using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), serves as the current method for identifying S. divinorum. However, salvinorin A can be extracted from S. divinorum to prepare liquid extracts for recreational use. This can result in low levels of salvinorin A in the residual plant material that may or may not be detectable, causing possible difficulty with identification. Hence, an alternative procedure for identifying S. divinorum, such as using a full chemical fingerprint, would be beneficial. The purpose of this research was to generate chemical fingerprints of S. divinorum and four related Salvia species using GC-MS to analyze the volatile compounds and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to analyze the non-volatile compounds. The differentiation of S. divinorum from the other species based on chemical fingerprints was then investigated using statistical procedures.
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