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REGINA vs. SMITH Part 10

By Hempology | February 6, 2006

revision 2003/09/10.
Q All right.
A So it is from 2003.
Q Okay. Could you turn to ?? so is this currently in effect, this standard operating procedure?
A For this ?? yes, I ?? without actually having read it to see if there any changes I ?? it most likely is, yes.
Q All right. First I’m going to ask you to turn to page 9 ?? no, page 8, I’m sorry. There are pages on the bottom.
A Mm-hmm.

Q It says page 8.
A Yes.
Q And it is section 10.6. I have ?? section 10.6, if you would?
A Mm-hmm.
Q And it reads “requirements for positive identification”.
A Yes.
Q And it says in the beginning paragraph [as read in]:

The analyst forms a conclusion on the identity of the sample based on examination of all the observations noted from each test of this procedure. The criteria used to form this conclusion are listed below.

And then it gives three things that you could be looking for for positive identification. The first one it mentions is cannabis resin and it gives some tests that are done to identify cannabis resin.
Then it gives cannabis marihuana and some tests to be done to identify cannabis marihuana.
And then in the last category it says “single or double cannabinoid” and it gives some tests for determining the single or double cannabinoid.
We are looking at that last situation, aren’t we, the single cannabinoid being tested for ??
A Yes.
Q — is tetrahydrocannabinol?
A Yes.
Q All right. So it states that the tests that are to be used ?? it says ?? and these are in addition to each other, it says [as read in]:
Detection of the cannabinoids on the TLC plate.

And the “TLC” is the thin layer chromatography plate that ??
A That’s right.
Q — you didn’t do, right?
A I didn’t do it on all but one. One of them I did actually do it.
Q Where is the result of that?
A It’s actually on my ?? on one of these ?? these ones here. I’ll show you.
Q Please. On these notes?
A This one on number 15.
Q Is this the last page?
A Yes.
Q Number 15?
A Yeah, it’s hard to see, but it says “TLC” there.
Q But ?? but ?? but what ?? would you tell us what we are looking at here on this last page of these documents?
A Okay. What it is is a little stamp that we used to use at the time. Things have changed since ?? since this ?? or after this document was produced.
And what it is is we look at ?? these things were micro, which is normally if you ?? if you see some evidence of cannabis marihuana, the Duquenois ??
Q But you ?? you didn’t see any evidence ??
A — the Duquenois-Levine test.
Q — of cannabis material?
A No, no, I didn’t. All I saw was ?? what it was in this case was a ?? kind of a smell that was coming off of it that is consistent with what I’ve noticed over the years.
The Duquenois is a colour test, thin layer chromatograph, which is as we discussed, and then the MSD, which is the mass selective and also a GC screen.
Those are the tests that have been done. Now, unfortunately, as I said, I didn’t print out the GC screen because I didn’t know at the time, but ?? otherwise I could have brought those as well.
So this is the only one that I ?? that I actually did TLC on ??
Q So I just see ??
A I don’t have a ?? I don’t have a copy of the TLC itself, no.
Q You don’t have a copy of any test results showing TLC?
A I ??
Q You’ve got something stamped on one page of your notes that has got a little tick ??
A Check mark, and that was our procedure at the time. We didn’t ?? we didn’t keep copies of the TLC at the time.
Q So you don’t have any copies of any TLC reports?
A No, I don’t.
Q And you only did it for one sample out of 12?
A Yes, I did. That’s ?? yeah, that’s ?? according to my notes that’s correct.
Q And yet the requirements are clear, aren’t they? The requirements are clear that it says you are supposed to do both of those?
A As our requirements are right now, that is correct. At ?? on ?? when the samples were done we had different requirements.
And I might add too, on ?? we also have an SOP called “drug identification SOP”, and ?? which I don’t know if you’ve got a copy, and I don’t have it here ??
Q No, I don’t have a copy of that.
A But drug identification SOP doesn’t ?? doesn’t require a thin layer chromatography. Cannabinoid is considered ?? can be considered a drug, and it can fall under the drug identification SOP, which states that you have to run a GC screen and a GCMSD or an FTIR, which is something that is not related to this, but it is another confirmatory technique.
Q But you told me that the ?? the procedures that you are supposed to be operating under are these?
A That is right, as ?? as of 2005, yes.
Q I just point out to you for your agreement or disagreement that you didn’t comply with these procedures on 11 of the 12 samples.
A That ??
Q Correct?
A — that’s correct and the reason being, as I said, is because they ?? these requirements were not our SOPs at that time. That is not what we were required to do at that time.
Q You have no proof that you did it on the 12th one either, do you?
A Well ??
Q You have no results?
A — the proof is from my notes.
Q That little check mark on your note?
A Yes.
Q All right. But it must surely come out with some results other than your little check mark? Results you ??
A Yes, there was a thin layer plate ??
Q — don’t have.
A — that was there. But at that time ?? what we do now is we scan them on a scanner and keep an electronic copy of the TLC plates. At that time we didn’t have that requirement and it wasn’t done.
Q The requirements have stiffened it sounds like?
A Yes, they have.
Q For good reason, haven’t they?
A Basically for documentation.
Q For being able to prove what you say, support what you say, correct?
A I would disagree with that.
Q The ?? you would agree with me that there are perfectly legal products on the market that contain THC, correct?
A Yes, there are.
Q What are some of those?
A Hemp is the one that I’m aware of, and I believe there is a ?? there is a drug called dron ?? Dronabinol, I think, or something that’s ?? that also contains it. Dronabinol I think it is called.
Q All right.
A Those are the only ones I’m aware of.
Q When you say “hemp” what are you referring to?
A It’s ?? well, I’m not ?? I’m ?? I’m not an expert, once again, I’m not a botanist, so I ?? I believe it is a cannabis material that has a very low level of THC.
Q Right. Like industrial hemp?
A Yes.
Q And you are familiar with ?? industrial hemp can be grown in the field ??
A Yes.
Q — plants in the field ??
A Yes.
Q — and industrial hemp plants are not supposed to contain more than .3 percent THC by weight?
A That’s correct.
Q Okay. Point three percent, so that would be a perfectly legal plant?
A Yes.
Q All right.
A According to the regulations, yes.
Q And the ?? and how about hemp nuts, do you know what they are?
THE COURT: I’m sorry, what?
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Hulled hemp seeds.
Hemp nuts.
THE COURT: Nuts?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: They are nuts, but they are ??
THE COURT: Nuts? Hemp nuts?
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q What they are is they are the hemp seed with the hull taken off, so that they are quite moist and very edible without a sort of sticky hull material.
A I’m not familiar with them.
Q You are not familiar with ??
A No.
Q — hemp nuts?
A No, I’m not.
Q How about hemp products that you might find in a ?? a bakery or a health food store? Are you familiar with some of those?
A Not particularly. I ?? I may have heard of some, but ?? but I ?? I’m not ?? I can’t say that I’m really familiar with them.
Q Here is one that I have that I’ll show ?? show you. It just happens to be something called “hemp balm”, it’s a hemp moisturizer for your lips, and it says at the very bottom here ?? I’ve got to find the English here.
It says, “10 micrograms per gram of THC or less.”
A Okay.
Q Do you want to take a look and see if you can read that?
A Yeah.
Q So here is a hemp product that has 10 micrograms of THC or less in it?
A Mm-hmm.
Q And apparently a perfectly legal product?
A Apparently yes.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Just as long as we are doing exhibits perhaps I can have two things marked as an exhibit now. One would be the standard operating procedure, I would like to have that marked as an exhibit, it’s been identified.
THE COURT: Mr. Fowler?
MR. FOWLER: No objection to that.
THE COURT: Exhibit 33.
THE CLERK: Exhibit 33.

EXHIBIT 33: Lab standard operating procedure (2003)

MR. MOORE-STEWART: And if I could I’ll have the hemp balm, it says “The Merry Hempsters” on it ??
MR. FOWLER: Might I just have a look at that?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Surely. May I have that marked as an exhibit as well?
MR. FOWLER: Well, this witness cannot identify it, Mr. Moore-Stewart.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Well, he ??
THE COURT: How do ?? how do we get it in?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: — identified that it seemed to be a perfectly legal product. It does not matter too much.
MR. FOWLER: I don’t ?? I don’t think this witness quite frankly can expand on the legality of anything ??
THE COURT: No.
MR. FOWLER: — in this particular substance. I’m ?? I don’t know if it is much use at all, but I ??
THE COURT: We’ll mark it A for identification, Mr. Moore-Stewart.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: A for identification will be fine.

MARKED A FOR IDENTIFICATION: Hemp lip balm

MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q How about ?? have you heard of the substance called Marinol?
A No, I haven’t.
Q It is sort of ?? it may have been what ?? you ?? you talked about something called Dronabinol?
A Yes. That’s the only one I’ve heard of.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It’s the same.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q And that’s what, a synthetic THC ??
A Yes.
Q — product?
A That’s my understanding, yes.
Q That is a pharmacological product ??
A Yes.
Q — is it? All right. You get a prescription for that for certain conditions?
A That is my understanding, yes.
Q All right. So that would have tested positive for THC I gather?
A Yes, I ?? like I say, I haven’t ?? I haven’t tested any of them.
Q All right.
A I have just seen bottles of it and ?? and other people have done it, so I’m ?? I’m assuming yes it would.
Q Mm-hmm. Have you ?? have you tested any of the legal products like hemp seeds or maybe that lip balm that I showed you?
A No, I haven’t. We have done some hemp studies because of the farming of the ?? of the hemp plants themselves, to show that they are under the .3 percent, but I haven’t done the analyses myself.
Q Okay. The ?? have you heard of a product called Sativex?
A No, I haven’t.
Q As far as the ?? there ?? there is also marihuana seeds, right? There is a market in marihuana seeds?
A Yes, apparently there is, yeah.
Q And a market in marihuana stalk?
A Ah ??
Q Or hemp stalk?
A Maybe. It’s not the area of my expertise about whether they are market ?? marketed or not.
Q Hemp paper and certain kind of ?? in place of wood products used ??
A Yeah, I’ve ?? I’ve heard of them, but like I say, it is not my area of expertise.
Q And those are legal products from the hemp plant and likely contain THC as well, correct?
A Yes. Yes far as I know. Yes.
Q The ?? and you never did any microscopic analysis of the material that you looked at?
A No, I didn’t.
Q And the purpose of microscopic analysis, I gather ?? just going to the ?? do you still have the standard operating ??
A Yep, I do.
Q — procedure in front of you?
A Yes.
Q There is a section of it called “microscopic testing”?
A Yep.
Q And that is page 6?
A Yes.
Q And it says [as read in]:

Before microscopic testing on one sub sample when the presence of marihuana is suspected using magnification to identify characteristic features and record the results of this observation.

And they talk about hairs, looking for hairs on the upper ?? on the surface of the upper leaves.
A Yes.
Q And leaf fragments and glandular hair on seed hulls and things like that. You never looked for any of those things?
A No, I did not.
Q The . . .
The ?? the GCMS test that you did; that is the gas chromatography and ??
A Mass selective detector.
Q Mass selective detector ??
A Yes.
Q — test? In terms of the analysis of the ?? of ?? of the material I gather what happens is that you get ?? you put this beam of electrons through the tested material ??
A Yes.
Q — and you see how it fragments off, correct?
A That’s correct.
Q Well, did you just use a computer algorithm, if you will, did you just leave it to the computer to determine what it was, or did you actually examine those fragments personally yourself?
A I examined them personally myself. When I printed out the ones that I gave you here that was just to show a comparison. I actually do the physical comparison of one versus the other when I actually do the analysis. This is just for ease of viewing.
Q Did you reconstruct the molecule from the fragments?
A Reconstruct the molecule? No.
Q How do you specifically know that it is the molecule you are looking for if you didn’t do at least a conceptional realignment of the fragments that you found to see if you could [indiscernible/overlapping speakers] ??
A Oh ??
Q — the whole molecule?
A — those kinds of things are done maybe once just to see that ?? to see what is actually happening, but normally we rely on the literature or on our standards that we’ve run. And we compare that to the ?? to the sample that we are ?? that’s in question.
Q You talked about grass being somehow not significantly ?? when you were looking at the ??
A Yes.
Q We just have one copy of ??
A Yes.
Q — these results here. Like what is it you are referring to as “grass” again?
A Okay. The grass would be like this here ??
Q Like ??
A — these ?? those little ??
THE COURT: I’m sorry, Mr. Taylor, that doesn’t help the jury members.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Yes, you are going to have to ??
THE COURT: Can you hold that up so the jury can see what you are pointing at?
A Okay. Should ?? should I go over there?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Surely.
A It’s what one of the ladies on the jury pointed out. What we are referring to here, and I think you were the one that pointed it out, these small peaks that are on here.
JUROR: Mm-hmm.
A You are probably look ?? yeah, that’s right. And what generally that ?? that’s caused by is what ?? what ?? when the beam of electrons hits the ?? the sample as it comes through, it is in a vacuum, or as best as we can get a vacuum, and so sometimes the vacuum not being a perfect vacuum there are other things that are on there, and so when the beam of electrons hits them it also gives fragmentation of those. And you won’t expect them to be as large as ?? that is why they are called “grass”; it is just the term for it. And you won’t expect them to be as large as these ones here because they are just insignificant things that happen to be floating around in the ?? in this imperfect vacuum. So that is why they are not significant. These are the significant areas.
Q So, Mr. Taylor, the top chart here, this is on the third page of one of these reports, the top chart is from the sample, and the bottom part is ??
A That’s right.
Q — from your standard?
A From a standard, yeah, which we ?? I produced here because of a library search.
Q And I notice that the numbers are not the same. For example, in the ?? just going from some different numbers from the left to the right ??
A Mm-hmm.
Q We have “43″ on the top, and a “41″ on the bottom.
A Mm-hmm.
Q When we get over to “107″ we have “103″ on the bottom.
A Mm-hmm.
Q When we come to “119″ we have “115″ on the bottom.
A Mm-hmm.
Q When we come to “128″ there seems to be nothing above the ?? the ?? it looks like “128″ at all, “141″ seems to be opposite “147″ ??
A Mm-hmm.
Q — “159″ opposite “161″ ??
A Yeah, and that’s ??
Q — these aren’t matches?
A Yeah, but they are actually matches. The ?? the difference is because the way that the ?? once again, this is a electronic and computerized matched search. This here is ?? is ?? I just did this for convenience, and what it does is this was run on a ?? on a slightly different instrument, and was what is called “tuned” in a slightly different way. So that is why some of these numbers are ?? are ?? are different.
Like the one here, just as an example ?? I don’t know if you are all looking at the same one here but it is 13821. Okay. Just so we are all looking at the same thing. Okay?
If you look here there are two peaks, one has “41″ over it, and there are two peaks here, one has “43″. Because of the tune of the instrument, the mass spectra that was used in this particular case, it identified the “41″. The intensities vary because of the tune itself, one will be slightly higher than the other, consequently that is the reason that you get some of the different numbers on the bottom one versus the different on this. It is just the intensities of ?? of the ?? of the masses that have gone through. That’s why they are different.
But all the ?? if you ?? if we could expand it, like if I had a computer here where I could expand it and go through each individual one you would see that they all do match if they are ?? even though they are in slightly different intensities. And the height of these things is what is called the intensity.
Q So that is what you are calling a “fingerprint”?
A Yes.
Q And it doesn’t match?
A I disagree. It does match.
Q The ?? the molecular weight of THC is 314, correct?
A I believe so, I ?? yeah, I believe so.
Q The molecular weight ?? do you know what CBD is?
A Cannabidiol.
Q Yes. What is the molecular weight of that? Isn’t that 314 as well?
A I don’t know. I ?? it ?? I’d have to look ?? I’d have to look in my references.
Q Cannabichromene, CBC ??
A Cannabichromene, yes.
Q — you are familiar with that?
A Yes.
Q And does that also have a molecular weight of 314?
A Once again, it is possible, I’m not sure. I would have to look it up. I can tell you that the mass ?? the mass spectra are different of each of those, though.
Q The difference between CBD and THC that’s just ?? that’s just one molecular bond, isn’t it?
A Once again I would have to look it up to do the comparisons.
Q Okay. Drift, do you suffer from ?? or your lab from ??
A I don’t personally, no.
Q — from retention time drift over the course of the day ??
A No.
Q — so that the retention times are [indiscernible/overlapping speakers]?
A Very, very slight drift. Very slight. And we have ?? we have standards for that too. If ?? when we do run our ?? that is why we run our ?? our test mix every day, and that is one of the criteria that we look for is for retention time drift, and we ?? it is compared to an internal standard.
Q Did you inject a standard when you were doing the MS testing?
A No, I didn’t.
Q You didn’t inject a standard; you just pulled the information out of the computer without injecting the standard?
A Yes.
Q It is perfectly legal, is it not, in Canada [indiscernible/overlapping speakers] ??
THE COURT: I don’t know whether this witness can give this jury a legal opinion here, Mr. Moore-Stewart.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: I ??
THE COURT: He is an analyst not a ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Just within his area of expertise I’m asking him the limit of THC in a food product in Canada.
THE COURT: Can you answer that question, Mr. Taylor?
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Are you familiar with that?
A I ?? I couldn’t answer. The only thing I would be aware of would the hemp, which we discussed earlier. A food product ??
Q So the .3 percent THC by weight?
A I’m ?? and that is just a guess on my party really. I ?? it’s not my area of expertise.
Q All right. But you have been in grocery stores and you’ve seen hemp food products I assume?
A No. I’ve never looked for them so I ??
Q All right.
A — couldn’t say that I have.
Q Or The Body Shop, you’ve been in The Body Shop?
A I have been in The Body Shop once or twice, yeah.
Q And they have a lot of hemp products there?
A Do they? Okay. I ?? I haven’t noticed them. I’m sorry.
Q All right. Okay.
You never did any infrared spectrophotometry did you?
A No, I did not.
Q Chromatography?
A No.
Q No. You never did a NMR test, did you?
A No.
Q What is an NMR test?
A NMR?
Q Yes.
A It is nuclear magnetic resonance.
Q Yes.
A We don’t have an NMR instrument in the laboratory so, no, I didn’t.
Q And what’s the IR test, the infrared test?
A That’s ?? that’s another confirmatory test which can be ?? can be used on certain substances. You have ?? part of the problem with ?? with it is you need a pure substance to ?? to get a good infrared spectra.
Q All right. Just looking at the same section we looked at before ??
A Mm-hmm.
Q — of the standard operating procedure.
A What page was that?
Q Page 8.
A Page 8, yes.
Q Where it says, “requirements for positive identification” ??
A Yes.
Q — and down again for single or double cannabinoid ??
A Yes.
Q — it says ?? the first thing it says is you are supposed to do the TLC plate, which ??
A Yes.
Q — wasn’t done at least on 11 of the 12 of them, and no results on the one that we have, and (b) it says [as read in]:

Either a GCFTIR or a GCMS test.
A Right.
Q I gather what you did was the GCMS test and the GC ?? GC stands for gas chromatography?
A Right, gas chromatograph, yes.
Q Okay. And the GCFTIR test ??
A Yes.
Q — is that the infrared test?
A That ?? that is an infrared technique. We didn’t have that instrument in the lab so we couldn’t do it.
Q All right. All right.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Those are my questions.
THE COURT: Anything arising, Mr. Fowler?
MR. FOWLER: If I could, My Lord, just briefly.

RE-EXAMINATION BY MR. FOWLER:

Q Mr. Taylor, my friend made reference just now, and a little while ago as well, to the page ?? I think it was page 8 of the reference material that he put before you, to the two tests, or the tests that are laid out there, that are I suppose ?? he says to be followed.
Just to be clear. We didn’t discuss the TLC plate; that is the chromatography plate test I think you referred to earlier?
A Mm-hmm.
Q That ?? could you describe what kind of test that is in the sense of what kind of information does it provide?
A A thin layer chromatography test in ?? in and by itself is just an indicative test really, because all you are comparing are the spots that rise. Basically you have got the sample separating. Instead of separating in a gas chromatograph they separate on a plate, which has a silica gel layer on it. The liquid rises up and it separates the individual components.
To visualize those components you ?? you spray it with a visualizing agent and then you’ll see the colours of the individual cannabinoids.
So what that is, is it’s ?? it’s ?? it’s ?? in and of itself is an indicative test.
Q So would that be the kind of thing that you might do as a first step when you are trying to narrow down the exact substances present?
A Yeah, you ?? you would do that or ?? or as additional information to make ?? to draw a conclusion.
Q And so then the ?? the mass spectrometry ?? the gas chromatography that you were describing that you did as a second step ??
A Yes.
Q — that test would be more specific and more detailed, is that true?
A Yes, like I said, I ?? I referred to it like a fingerprint.
Q Thank you. So if I can put it this way then, is it fair to say that having done test number two, the more specific and more sensitive test, that you would be I suppose in a much better position to say what the substance ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART: My ??
MR. FOWLER:
Q — might be then as opposed to ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART: I’m objecting in a sense just for the leading nature of the last few questions.
THE COURT: This is re-examination, not cross-examination, Mr. Fowler.
MR. FOWLER: Yes, thank you, My Lord.
THE COURT: The objection is sustained.
MR. FOWLER: Fair enough.
Q Let me ask it to you then this way, Mr. Taylor, would you know more or less information about the substance you were analyzing using the second test as opposed to the first?
A I would know more the second test.
Q Thank you.
MR. FOWLER: No further questions, My Lord. Thank you.
THE COURT: Mr. Taylor, thank you for coming over and helping us with this matter today. I’m grateful to you.
You may stand down, and you are free to go.
A Thank you.
I’ll leave ?? should I leave this? That is another copy of ??
MR. FOWLER: If it is a copy, it is your ?? it is your copy.
A Okay. I’ll take it. This is the one with all the ??
MR. FOWLER: I’ll just double ??
Has Madam Clerk got one of those or another copy of that one?
THE CLERK: That has become Exhibit number ??
A Because I can leave it if you ?? I don’t need it any more.
MR. FOWLER: I think that is what has been marked as an exhibit already.
THE CLERK: I think that is Exhibit number 22.
A Yes.
THE CLERK: Thank you.
A Okay. Thank you.

(WITNESS EXCUSED)

MR. FOWLER: That is the case for the Crown, My Lord.
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Fowler.
Mr. Mr. Moore-Stewart?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: My Lord, we are prepared to begin with Dr. Pate, but I would ask since it is very close to the ?? the break, that we come back at 2 o’clock to begin Dr. Pate’s examination.
THE COURT: You are a real clock-watcher, Mr. Moore-Stewart.
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll take the luncheon recess and reconvene at 2 o’clock.
And I take it that the defence elects to call evidence?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Yes.
THE COURT: Two o’clock.

(JURY OUT)

(PROCEEDINGS ADJOURNED FOR NOON RECESS)
(PROCEEDINGS RECONVENED)

THE CLERK: Recalling Her Majesty The Queen against Leon Edward Smith, file 112476, My Lord.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: We are ready to proceed, My Lord.
THE COURT: We need a court ?? we need a ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Yes. When we have a jury.

(JURY IN)

THE COURT: Yes, Mr. Moore-Stewart?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Yes, My Lord. Our next, or our first, witness for the defence is Dr. David Pate, and I’m seeking to qualify Dr. Pate as an expert of the chemistry of cannabis and cannabinoids, and that I anticipate his testimony will be about the methods, practice, procedures, and protocols, used by the analyst that has just testified in this case, and that he will give his opinion on the procedures for the analysis that were used, and their compliance or non-compliance with accepted scientific procedures and methodology.
So we are calling him in short as a scientific expert to rebut the analyst.
The ?? I have ?? Dr. Pate, you have your curriculum vitae there in front of you? Yes?
WITNESS: Yes.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: And I wanted to go through your qualifications ??
THE COURT: Okay. Well, just a moment, please.
THE CLERK: Would you stand for a moment, please, witness?

DAVID PATE
a witness called by the Defence, affirmed.

THE CLERK: Would you state your name in full, and spell your last name for the record, please?
A David Walter Pate, that is P-a-t-e.
THE CLERK: Thank you. You may be seated if you wish.
THE COURT: Yes, carry on, Mr. Moore-Stewart.

EXAMINATION IN CHIEF BY MR. MOORE-STEWART ON QUALIFICATIONS:

Q Dr. Pate, I would like to ask you first some questions about your qualifications. I understand you have a PhD, what is that in?
A Pharmaceutical chemistry, with a specialization in cannabinoids.
Q All right. And I understand you have a master’s degree. What would that be in?
A That is in plant biology with a specialization in cannabis.
Q All right. And in your Doctorate of Philosophy degree, your PhD degree, what was noted about your dissertation in regard to that?
A Well, if you can believe what you read, that the dissertation was seen as good enough to nominate by the Faculty of Pharmacy for a campus wide competition on the best dissertation ??
Q All right.
A — published that year.
Q And what campus was that?
A University of Kuopio in Finland.
Q All right. The ??
THE COURT: Sorry. Could you spell that for me, please?
A K-u-o-p-i-o. It is essentially a pharmacy and medical college.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q All right.
THE COURT: In Finland?
A How I got there is a long story. Yes.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Okay. I would like you to describe the kinds of publications that you have authored in this field?
And I note they are listed rather extensively at the end of your curriculum vitae, which I will be seeking to have established as an exhibit.
A Okay. In a broad sense there are more than one category. The first category is primary research; that is where you actually contribute something to the understanding of the topic through publication of original results in the scientific literature, a journal of one sort of another.
Q Mm-hmm.
A And then there is another type, which are critical reviews. That is basically where you have enough understanding of the field to review a topic in its totality and basically critique the state of the art. And there is a few of those.
And then there are some patents, which everybody knows what a patent is basically, a proprietary intellectual property.
Q Well, what areas have your primary research been in?
A They have been almost exclusively in cannabis or the cannabinoids. Perhaps some mention should be made that cannabinoids, as you might infer from the term, are the ingredients within the ?? the plant cannabis.
Q All right.
A They can also extend to other sorts of related compounds as well.
Q And what kind of critical reviews have you written?
A Well, the latest one was something in a journal, a mainstream scientific publication called Pharmacology and Therapeutics. And basically it was a ?? a review of the state of the art of using cannabinoids in the treatment of glaucoma. I’ll probably not need to explain that here, but ??
Q All right. What ??
A Excuse me, there are others. I don’t know how much further you want me to go?
Q What publications have you been an editor for?
A There ?? there are a number of roles that I have played on a ?? in an editorial sense. From an outside perspective I have been a referee on various manuscripts that have come my way. Basically the peer review process requires that a manuscript in submission to a journal for publication has to be reviewed by peers to critique it as to its validity, and also minor errors, as well as conceptual errors.
And then after it has gone through this peer review process, corrections are made, and when the referees are satisfied it is published. It is a quality control mechanism basically.
I have also been one of the co-editors of two different journals. This is more of an inside editorial position. The Journal of Industrial Hemp and Journal of the International Hemp Association, the latter of which I helped to co-found.
Q All right. Have you also had some involvement with the US Food and Drug Administration?
A In collaboration with an AIDS and cannabis study I wrote a ?? a NDA, a new drug application, for cannabis as a ?? as a drug. It was fairly short. And that is sort of the first step for legitimizing a drug as a therapeutic.
Q And I notice on the last page of your resume there is a ?? in the area called “popular media” ?? what has your involvement with popular media been?
A Well, it’s ?? it’s been various, but as an editor or co-editor of a journal one of my roles has been to interview leading cannabis and cannabinoid researchers. The shoe being on the other foot occasionally I’m interviewed by the media, usually popular media of some sort, an occasional print interview or appearance on radio or television.
Q All right. And does your curriculum vitae ?? does that accurately reflect your background and qualifications?
A Yes.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: I would seek to have that marked as an exhibit.
THE COURT: Mr. Fowler?
MR. FOWLER: No objection, My Lord.
THE COURT: Exhibit 34.
THE CLERK: Exhibit 34.

EXHIBIT 34: Curriculum vitae of Dr. David Pate

MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Dr. Pate, what ?? what are the sources of the THC ?? possible sources ??
MR. FOWLER: Sorry, My Lord, before my friend gets into that I think I would like a chance to cross-examine this witness as to qualifications.
THE COURT: Are you done with the doctor’s qualifications?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. Any questions on his qualifications, Mr. Fowler?
MR. FOWLER: Just briefly, My Lord.

CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. FOWLER ON QUALIFICATIONS:

Q Doctor, I note your PhD is in pharmaceutical chemistry. Can you tell us exactly what pharmaceutical chemistry means as opposed to just chemistry for example?
A Pharmaceutical chemistry is a little bit of a hybrid between pharmacology and straight chemistry. It’s basically drug design. It is looking for the ?? the ?? what is called structure activity relationships between the molecule’s shape and composition, and its subsequent effect in either experimental animals or human beings.
Q And can you tell us what kind of experience you’ve had well, for example, operating a mass spectrometer machine at the ?? as we’ve heard described here earlier today?
A I have had what you might call limited experience in mass spectrometry. I have had extensive experience in gas chromatography.
I was the senior technical officer at HortaPharm. HortaPharm was the entity, the corporate entity, that developed the cannabis plants that later went to GW Pharmaceuticals, who eventually made a product called Sativex, which is currently on the market in Canada.
Q Okay. And just ?? just so I’m clear then, the ?? Mr. Taylor who was ?? gave us some evidence this morning with respect to results that he obtained from a ?? I guess a combination of a mass ?? of a ??
A GCMS?
Q Exactly, yes, thank you. Provided us with some spectra printouts ??
A Mm-hmm.
Q — and it is that particular aspect of the machine that you have ?? you say you have limited experience with it, is that fair to say?
A Yes. That’s a ?? that’s a vague answer, but I would say fairly limited, yes.
MR. FOWLER: I have no further questions, My Lord, with respect to qualifications.
THE COURT: Any submissions?
MR. FOWLER: Well, I certainly have no problem having this person admitted as an expert in ?? in the chemistry of cannabis and cannabinoids. I think that is pretty clear. I suppose the only area of concern I have is ?? is given the statement he has just made about having limited experience with the actual mass spec machine that the analyst Mr. Taylor spoke about using this morning, I’m not sure that he ?? he would be qualified to give us much of an opinion with respect to the analyses of that particular device.
Apart from that I don’t have any further submissions.
THE COURT: Well, I’m going to find that goes to weight.
I’m a little puzzled by the notion of him testifying in the matter of cannabis and cannabinoids, Mr. Moore-Stewart. What ?? it’s the process or methodology that I understand that you are calling into question here.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Yes, precisely, I’m ?? but it is just ?? the analysis has to do with cannabinoids ??
THE COURT: All right.
All right. I’ll accept Dr. Pate as an expert to give opinion evidence to this jury in the field of cannabis and cannabinoids, and the scientific methodology for isolating those compounds in a clinical sense, I suppose.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Very good.
THE COURT: Now ladies and gentlemen what we’ve gone through here is a requirement of the law before a witness is entitled to give you what is in effect conclusory evidence. You already have a conclusion in the certificate that has already been filed as an exhibit. In the opinion of Mr. Taylor the substance he analyzed contained THC in his opinion.
Now he was allowed to do that, because as I told you yesterday, the ?? the Controlled Substances Act [sic] permits that to go before you. But in the ordinary course of events a witness can only come and testify before you what that witness experienced through that witness’ senses. They either saw something and they can relate it to you, or they heard something, or they smelled something, and it is for you, and you alone, to draw conclusions on the basis of the facts presented to you by witnesses or indeed documents.
But when there is an area where you and I as laypersons may not have sufficient knowledge to come to a conclusion, the law permits somebody who has an expertise in the particular field to come before you and actually provide a ready made conclusion for you. But before that person is entitled to give that conclusion they must demonstrate that they have the necessary expertise, and then it is for you to decide whether or not you are going to accept the opinion, and find as a fact that that opinion is true or not. It is entirely up to you.
But that is why we go through the exercise of ensuring that this man is going to have the necessary field of expertise in order to give you a ready made conclusion. I hope that makes sense.
Go ahead, Mr. Mr. Moore-Stewart.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Thank you, My Lord.

EXAMINATION IN CHIEF BY MR. MOORE-STEWART:

Q Dr. Pate, you’ve heard the analyst make a conclusion that in the testing that he did he found THC. My first question to you is what are some of the sources from where the THC could have come from in those cookies? What possible sources could have provided THC?
A When you say the word “possible” that opens up an infinite number, but I would say that if you scoped down to a likely source, you could say that the watershed falls between marihuana or hemp, industrial hemp.
Q Industrial ?? okay, marihuana or industrial hemp. Let me just ask a few extra questions here. If one tested industrial hemp with the techniques that were described by Brian Taylor that he utilized, what would the result of such testing likely be?
A It depends on the sensitivity of the test, but using the more sensitive tests you certainly could find THC, even with the less sensitive tests I do think you could probably find at least traces.
Q Using the test that he talked about as the mass selective detector would one likely find THC in the ?? in industrial hemp?
A Yes, easily.
Q The ?? how about marihuana seed? Would marihuana seed contain testable THC as such a test as the mass selective detector?
A All the parts of cannabis, possibly with the exception of the roots, would probably almost inevitably test positive.
Q All right. The ?? how about if one took ?? what ?? what are some pharmaceutical substances that contain THC? Are there such?
A Well, there are ?? as I alluded to earlier, there is a product on the market within the last say ?? it was approved in April, called Sativex. And just to check about a month ago, disconnected from these proceedings, I went to the local Safeway and asked if they had any and they said no, but they could get me some. I didn’t go any further than that.
Q What is it?
A Basically it is a whole cannabis extract. The plants that I helped develop at HortaPharm, which were later sold to GW Pharmaceuticals who makes this product, takes the materials and does a simple extraction and puts them in what might be called a pharmaceutically acceptable dosage form. This is some alternative to rolling a joint or smoking it in a pipe, something that looks more clinically acceptable to the ?? to the physicians, and perhaps more acceptable to the patients. And certainly it is prescribable by your local physician.
Q And would that test for THC?
A Yeah, inevitably.
Q How about ?? what is the substance in Marinol?
A Marinol is a drug that has been on the market for about 20 years, and it is a synthetic THC. It is on a molecular basis identical to the THC that is produced by the plant, but its origins are wholly synthetic industrial made from precursors bought off the shelf from chemical companies.
Q And ??
A That is available on prescription as well.
Q All right. There is a ?? I’m looking for the ?? the prescription drug that was mentioned, perhaps you can help me here, by Mr. Taylor when he ?? he didn’t mention Sativex and he didn’t mention Marinol, he mentioned another one.
A He mentioned the term Dronabinol. Dronabinol is the ?? what you might call the generic version of Marinol. Marinol is a brand name. And its owned by a company called Unimed, who has been bought by Solvay Pharmaceuticals. So in the UN documents that talk about use of THC as a therapeutic, to avoid proprietary interest, for example, they use the term Dronabinol. It is a generic term that was conjured up as an alternative to the proprietary term.
Q And how about the stalk of the industrial hemp plant? Sometimes ?? if that was tested would that likely show THC?
A I would say it would be inevitable that all of these plant parts on all of these types of plants would show THC. One of the goals of industrial hemp breeding has been to lower the THC levels to the point where it is eliminated, they haven’t been able to do it.
Q They haven’t been able to do what?
A Eliminate THC.
Q From what?
A From industrial hemp.
Q Did you hear anything from Mr. Taylor that was a quantitative analysis of how much THC there might be in one of those cookies?
A No, there were ?? there is a qualitative analysis, that is the difference between something existing and something not existing, the difference between zero and one. But the difference between one and any other number was not alluded to. It is simply a confirmation of existence for that molecule.
Q So if the same testing had been one on some industrial hemp would the same results or different results apply to ??
A The same. You would have said, “THC is there”, but it ?? you know, there is no comparison between a grain of sand and a skyscraper in terms of the amount of mass involved.
Q How about the hemp nuts that ?? first of all, what is a hemp nut?
A Well, hemp nut started as a proprietary term, and after a legal battle it became a generic term. I know the people involved. And it is now settled into a term that describes the interior of a cannabis seed, the what you might call the nutmeat in any other context, a dehulled seed.
Q And can you buy those in grocery stores?
A Sure.
Q And do they contain THC?
A Yes.
Q Would they test the same as these other substances that you have talked about?
A Yes, in this respect.
Q How about hemp oil? What is hemp oil?
A Well, hemp oil is simply not to be confused with hash oil, which is a ?? an illegal drug. Hemp oil is simply the expressed oil from the cannabis seed. It is about 30 percent by weight of the seed, the other portion ?? major portions being about 25 percent protein, the rest carbohydrates, and soluble and insoluble fibre.
Q And does the hemp oil contain THC?
A Yes.
Q Is THC ?? does it have an oil affinity?
A Yes, very much so.
Q And what does that mean?
A You could probably put 10,000 times more THC in oil than in an equivalent amount of water.
Q And can you buy hemp oil at a natural food store or some grocery stores?
A Yes. It’s ?? it’s a completely legitimate product of commerce.
Q And what could you say about the nutritional value of hemp oil and hemp nuts?
A Oh, I’ve written papers on this. I would say that in short it is very good. Hemp oil contains the essential ?? two essential fatty acids that without which life ?? your life would not be possible. These two essential fatty acids are probably in chronically short supply in normal every day fast food supplement diets, and this is a good way to compensate for that.
Q What is the difference between hemp and marihuana?
A At the risk of sounding poetic you could say nothing and everything. The ?? the ?? hemp is an industrial product that is useful for making paper. It is useful for weaving into textiles. It’s use in that regard is probably 12,000 years old. It’s the basis of a modern industry in Canada. It generally has less ?? considerably less THC in order of magnitude or more than marihuana.
Marihuana and cannabis are ?? excuse me, a Freudian slip. Marihuana and hemp are cannabis. They are the same genus of plant, possibly even the same species, although that is up for contention. And when you grow it in the field you can see the difference, there is quite a bit of difference. A field of hemp normally, if it is a fibre producing variety, is very tall and skinny with a little topknot of leaves and flowers, looking a little bit like bamboo. They are sown in the soil very close together and so they are very almost monolithic blocks of stems because you want to exaggerate the yield by planting them as close as possible, and leaves and flowers are considered not the ?? not the point.
And marihuana, on the other hand, is normally grown for the leaves and flowers and the stalk is not relevant.
Q Mm-hmm. When we heard Mr. Taylor talk about his techniques he specifically stated that he hadn’t done any microscopic analysis, he never looked at this cookie material under a microscope.
What significance does that have, and what significance does the microscopic analysis have?
A Well, first of all, if you don’t do a microscopic analysis ?? you have to be literal about these things. If you don’t do microscopic analysis you do not know if cannabis as a botanical entity is there. You may be able to, you know, lean on active ingredients and things like that, but it’s ?? it’s a pretty ?? a pretty fundamental part of any analysis.
Q When you say you don’t know if cannabis is there ?? is that what you said?
A Yes, there is no botanical ?? 100 percent botanical identifiers available if you don’t look for them.
Q So what could it be if not cannabis?
A It could be some form of THC derived from any of a number of sources.
Q Okay. Such as?
A It could be anywhere from ?? on one extreme marihuana, to the other extreme simply an oil you bought at the grocery store.
Q Mm-hmm. Hemp oil?
A Yeah, or hemp ?? or hemp nut or denatured hemp seed, any of a number of things.
Q All right. The ?? the standard operating procedure, and the ?? the portion that I was reading to Mr. Taylor about cannabis identification, and particularly the identification of single or double cannabinoid, it talks about the TLC test, the ?? what’s that, thin ??
A Thin layer chromatography.
Q Thin layer chromatography. What can you tell us about Mr. Taylor’s evidence about his testing or non-testing of thin layer chromatography, which is apparently one of the required tests?
A Thin layer chromatography is a good survey tool. It is a good way to do an initial screen. When you are doing a lot of work on a basically mass production basis, it is better to do the easy tests first, and if you don’t get a result then you can go further. So it is a first ?? a first pass iteration of ?? of the test.
Q What do you make out of Mr. Taylor’s findings of what he said about the TLC test that he did do?
A My ?? my impression is that the amount of cannabinoid he found by TLC ?? he apparently did only one of the dozen that he might have done for each sample ??
Q Yes.
A — my opinion is that he found very little there and thought it wasn’t worth repeating the test more than once, but going directly to a more sensitive test where he could get a more assured measurement.
Q What does ?? if ?? if the first and only test apparently he did on TLC was as you described it, what would that say about the quantity or does it say anything about the amount?
A Well, TLC is not as sensitive as the GCMS, but it is fairly sensitive.
THE COURT: Just a moment, sorry.
A I’m sorry.
THE COURT: G ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART: GCMS.
THE COURT: Oh gas chromatography, okay.
A Gas chromatography mass spectrometry.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Okay. Yes.
A What he calls MSD, mass selective detector, they are equivalent terms. Mass selective detector is a ?? a more economical version of a mass spectrometer, which could be ?? mass spectrometer, which could be very expensive and very bulky.
I’m sorry can you repeat the question?
Q Okay. We were talking about the TLC results that he had done.
A Oh yes. Basically if you can’t get much in the way of TLC results it is either not there or it is there in such small quantities that it is beyond the capabilities of that methodology.
The latter alternative is possible, but that means that the amounts involved were pretty small, quite small, and that you had to go to something as powerful a technique as a GCMS to bring up essentially trace amounts.
Q All right. The ?? you made mention of the GCMS, which I gather is gas chromatography and mass spectrometry?
A Mass spectrometry.
Q And you made a comparison between that and the GC, gas chromatography – mass selective detector?
A Yes.
Q What is the difference there between the mass selective detector test and the mass spectrometry test?
A To be glib I supposed you would call the mass selective detector a poor man’s mass spectrometer.
Q That is the one they did, right?
A Yes. Yes. It’s a quick and dirtier version of a mass spec. There are various mass spectral techniques some of which are incredibly sensitive and incredibly accurate, particularly one called Tandem MSMS, where you put an MS behind another MS. But the more you add in the way of fulfilling ambition towards sensitivity and accuracy the more expensive and bulky these things are.
So they have found that a ?? a mass selective detector is satisfactory for many purposes, and it is only about ?? in the models I have seen it is as small as six to eight inches wide, and basically integrated into the GC, as opposed to a cubic metre of box sitting on the floor.
Q Mm-hmm. By way of analogy in terms of sensitivity of drug lab testing you were mentioning to me, and I’d like you to comment on this, about the ?? in terms of the sensitivity of drug testing for dollar bills and what sometimes happens in regard to drug labs?
A Well ??
Q Or hundred dollar bills?
A Well, the denomination is usually not so relevant, but some of these instruments are so sensitive, exquisitely so, that they can pick up residues that are frankly hard to believe. There have been published reports in the literature of taking random currencies from people like judges and priests and legislators, other people that are seen as pillars of the community, and analyzing them for cocaine and finding cocaine on their money.
Now this hasn’t been a lot of cocaine, but it doesn’t take much these ?? these instruments are so sensitive. In fact, once you get down to a certain sensitivity you find that the sensitivity becomes a drawback as well as a virtue, in that everywhere you look you find what you want, because these things are so powerful that they pick up the few molecules that exist everywhere.
Q Was there any quantification in the testing results, quantification in terms of the amount of THC, reported by Mr. Taylor at all?
A No, you can only imply from the evidence that it was a very small amount, because his TLC wasn’t satisfactory, he abandoned the technique, and that technique itself is reasonably good, but he went to a more powerful technique, which finally brought up the result that he was looking for.
Q Thank you. Why ?? what can you tell us about why more than one drug test is ?? is ?? is used in drug analysis, or supposed to be used in drug analysis?
A I presume you are talking about the qualitative analysis, the identification process?
Q Yes, like for example in the standard operating procedure it talks about requiring the TLC test, and either one of these gas chromatography tests, either the MS one, the mass spectrometry, or the infrared one.
A In every analysis you have a spectrum of result, and the result could be anywhere ?? it is basically a ratio of indicative to conclusive. In the more ?? in the cheaper and easier tests the result you get is more indicative and less conclusive. You see ?? you put a drop of a suspected material on a white plate, and you drop some reagent on it, and it turns a colour, and that colour is what it is supposed to turn the colour of under the agent that you are ?? you are investigating, but that doesn’t exclude false positives, other agents that could also turn that colour.
So that colour change test is seen as indicative but not conclusive. It is an enticement, an inducement to go further. And depending on the amount of sophistication of the test, I use the colour change test as probably one extreme, if you want to get even more extreme you could maybe smell something or taste something, but that is so subjective I’m not even including that in the spectrum.
On the other hand there is something called nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum ??
Q NMR or ??
A NMR, too many consonants, but ??
Q Okay.
A — basically there are various kinds of NMR, two of the major ones are proton NMR and carbon NMR. Now proton NMR ?? protons are hydrogens and hydrogens are on carbons and carbons are hooked together in chains to form molecules.
These type of techniques are very powerful. They let you know the signal from one carbon or one hydrogen and it’s relative placement to other carbons and hydrogens, and from these signals you can actually construct ?? construct from scratch knowing nothing about anything what this molecular structure is. It is a very powerful technique. If someone hands you a sample and it is pure and you are asked, “What is it?” and you are an NMR spectroscopist, you come back in a week and you can actually give him a drawing of the structure from scratch.
Q Mm-hmm.
A That is probably the other extreme of the ratio of indicative to conclusive.
Q That is on the ?? which [indiscernible/coughing] extreme?
A That is on the ?? on the conclusive side of the ratio of indicative to conclusive. The spot test I gave you as an example of something on the other extreme of indicative to conclusive, on the indicative side, but not conclusive.
Q And where would the GCMS and the GC ?? the one they actually did, the mass selective detector test ??
A In my opinion it would be about three quarters of the way towards conclusive.
Q All right. And the mass selective detector test, you call that a poor man’s version of mass spectrometry?
A Yes, it is the most economical means to get the job done with the least criteria for accuracy.
Q Okay.
A For example, some mass spectrometers in ?? in this particular example we have at hand, a mass selective detector will measure not only the fragmentation, but the ?? some of the molecules run through the gauntlet of electron beam unbroken and you get a measurement of the whole molecule. How much does the whole molecule weigh? In THC case it is 314 daltons.
Q Yes.
A And that’s rounded to the nearest unit usually, 314, not three ?? maybe 315, maybe 316 ??
Q That is the molecular weight of THC?
A That’s the molecular weight. So the accuracy is according to number of decimal places. You use the ?? if you use the most inexpensive means you are likely to get the most inexpensive results. If you use very expensive means you can get 314 point something, or 3 ?? 314 point something something, you can get many zeroes after the 314. And depending on the number of zeroes before you hit a digit, or more literally the more digits after the decimal place, as you don’t look for zeroes, you can get much more accuracy. You can actually tell with enough zeroes after the decimal point ?? let’s say with enough digits after the decimal point you can much ?? be much more sure what that molecule is.
Q Okay.
A And that is beyond the capability of the mass selective detector as far as I know.
Q All right. The mass selective detector test that was used, would there ?? the ?? Mr. Taylor testified that there was no specific sample injected into the very machine that he used, but rather he was comparing and matching a computer model. What effect does that have on the results?
A What you are comparing is a real live sample, in a real live situation, on a particular machine, on a particular day, to a model, a data model in a computer, that let’s you match it up.
Now if you wanted to be really meticulous you could inject a known sample, as he did, for the chromatogram portion, or at least he does it in the morning to ?? to make sure his retention times are where he thinks they are. But if he wanted to be really meticulous he could inject the standard and he could measure his own mass spectra. And then he could inject the unknown and measure that as well, and because he was in a position to suspect what the materials were, he doesn’t have to look around for an infinite number of standards, he pretty much is suspecting what it is, and then it is just a matter of taking ?? taking it off the shelf from my known source and certified source, injecting it, getting the mass spectral trace, and then doing the same thing with the unknown.
In this case, and he also might have wanted to take the breakdown products of both of these and using his intellectual resources put the molecule together from the puzzle pieces that result from the break up.
In this case what he did is he injected the unknown, he compared it ?? he pushed a couple of buttons, and he got the computer to tell him what it was.
Q Mm-hmm.
A Normally, in my experience with MS and you are doing computer retrieval searches, they will give you a number of possibilities. The computer will not give you 100 percent, the computer will give you maybe five different choices it could be, and they will rank order in ?? in percent of probability.
Q Mm-hmm. I get ??
A It says ?? so it’s, you know, not ?? you’ll never get 100 percent result.
Q I gather that there are some other molecules, cannabinoids that have the same molecular weight, or a very similar molecular weight at 314 of THC?
A Yes.
Q What are they?
A But I ?? I would stick to probably the closest two for the purposes of this ??
Q Which are?
A — which is THC and CBD.
Q All right. CBD has what kind of molecular weight?
A 314.
Q Same as THC?
A Yes.
Q All right.
A If you carried it up enough decimal places it ?? it ?? you may or may not have been able to get a difference, but certainly under these conditions 314 is 314.
Q I seem to have misplaced it, so I’m going to ask the Clerk if she could come up with one, Mr. Taylor had those three page mass spectrometer analyses.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: Could I have one of those?
THE CLERK: Certainly. Are you particular about which one it would be?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: No, I’m not particular. Thank you.
Q I’m going to show you one of his three page charts from the testing of one of the ?? one of the tests that he did.
THE COURT: Which exhibit number is that, Mr. Moore-Stewart?
MR. MOORE-STEWART: This is Exhibit number 32.
THE COURT: Thank you.
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q Just let’s go through, first of all, and have you tell us what each of these four diagrams on page 2 and 3 are. What is the first one, the top of the one [sic] at page 2?
A Okay. The first one, which is sort of a wide peak, basically that is a ?? an indication of when the peak in question came out. And I see that the photocopy is poor enough that I can see maybe one more peak but I ?? or two more, but it ?? it is hard for me to tell basically.
Q You are looking at the top ?? top diagram?
A Yeah, that is basically a ?? a signal and the more signal the higher the peak. And you get more signal by having more concentrated portion flow past the detector.
Q So the partial peak that you see, is that the area about an inch and a half to the left of the ??
A Yes. Yeah.
Q — main peak? Let me just show the jury what you are talking about her.
MR. MOORE-STEWART: He’s talking about this peak and this little partial peak about an inch and a half to the left.
A Okay. The ??
MR. MOORE-STEWART:
Q What can you say about either of those peaks?
A Well, the ?? the analogy that was made earlier, which is actually quite good, you start off with a mixture of chemicals that you want to separate and analyze sequent ?? separately. How do you do that? Well, you ?? that has been described and basically it is having a bunch of runners on a starting line all at the same spot, and ending up, because of their individual characters, coming out sequentially at the finish line. It’s ?? it is a very good analogy.
And in this case you see the big peak is a faster runner than the smaller peak to the left.
Q Can you tell what the smaller peak to the left is or the big peak?
A Out of context no.
Q All right. Would there be other peaks? Like you talked about CBN [sic], which has the same molecular weight, does CBN show up as a peak?
A No, CBN, I believe has a different molecular weight.
Q Oh, CBD, I’m sorry.
A CBD?
Q Yes.
A Basically you are going by ?? without the add of a mass spectrometer ??
Q Yes.
A — just with the GC portion, you are going by how many minutes it takes between an injection and a signal output, 15.1 minutes, 17.3 minutes, under the same conditions, with the same instrument, with the same o

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