Pharmacokinetics of nabilone, a psychotropically active 9-ketocannabinoid, in the dog. Utilization of quantitative selected ion monitoring and deuterium labeling

Quantitative selected ion monitoring methods for the determination of plasma concentrations of nabilone, a psychotropically active 9-ketocannabinoid, and two carbinol metabolites using deuterium labeled internal standards are described. These specific methods have a lower limit of sensitivity of about 2 pmol ml-1 with a coefficient of variation of less than 4%. The utility of these methods was demonstrated by in vivo studies of single dose and steady state pharmacokinetics of nabilone and its carbinol metabolites in the dog.