Investigating Impacts of Cannabis Tobacco and Vapes on Lung Cells Using GC×GC-MS (James Harynuk, MDCW 2025)

🎤 Presenter: James Harynuk (University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada)

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💡 Book in your calendar: 17th Multidimensional Chromatography Workshop (MDCW) 13 - 15. January 2026

Abstract

In Canada, more than one third of Canadians aged 18-44 reported using cannabis at least once in 2023 with about 10% of Canadians in this age range reporting daily or almost daily use. While there are many ways in which cannabis can be consumed, the most popular modes of consumption for Canadians remain the smoking of dried cannabis (65% of legal sales), followed by inhaled extracts (~25% of legal sales). Vaping (not necessarily of cannabis extracts) is particularly popular among younger Canadians, with 14% of youth aged 15-19, and 20% of adults aged 20-24 reporting past-30-day vaping.

Consequently, there is a clear need to characterize these exposures and investigate the impacts of these exposures on humans. Recent work in our laboratory has focused on the characterization of mainstream particle and volatile composition of vape and cannabis smoke as well as exposure studies to explore impacts of smoke on lung cells. In addition to presenting results studying the impacts of these direct exposures to cannabis and vaping, some preliminary results exploring the accumulation and retention of smoke by fabrics, representing potential third-hand exposures will be presented.