## 3 Conclusions and Future Directions  
Scientific and technological advancements in cultivation, manufacturing, recreational, industrial and medical use of cannabis, as well as updated legislation, led to the development of multitude of analytical methods for phytocannabinoid profiling. Matrix nature greatly affects selection of extraction technique, sample preparation and analytical method due to the fact that significant matrix interferences can occur and aggravate the overall analysis of target phytocannabinoids. Sample preparation for phytocannabinoid profiling in the past four decades is mainly based on versatile types of accelerated maceration, such as SLE, LLE, PLE, SPE, USE, FUSE and MAHD. Recently, new trends have enlightened environmental-friendly techniques, such as easily-automatable HS-SPME and SFE, which adds speed, repeatability and reproducibility to the analyses. From the multitude of analytical platforms, TLC and HPTLC, HPLC-DAD, GC and LC coupled with mass spectrometry (MS or MS/MS), are most commonly used; however, recently emerging techniques are NMR and vibrational spectroscopy methods, such as IR, NIR, FTIR and FT-NIR. TLC, together with HPTLC, which is a suitable method for screening of samples and is included in the pharmacopoeias in the identification methods. Cannabinoid profiling for research, industrial and QC purposes is based mostly on two analytical platforms: GC and LC. GCcoupled to versatile detectors and mass analyzers is one of the oldest, the most preferred and researched analytical platforms for phytocannabinoid profiling due to its robustness, reproducibility, sensitivity and speed. As a result of the advancement of computational tools, mass spectral libraries (MSLs), public compound repositories and compound databases (DBs), as well as various advanced detection techniques, GC has become the analytical platform in forensic, pharmacokinetic and phytochemical analysis of natural phytocannabinoids. As such, GC methods are also officially employed by authorities for terpene profiling, pesticide screening and residual solvents analysis, which affords potential benefits to regulatory bodies and cannabis industry. High pressure and high flow rates used during TLC, HPTLC, HPLC and UHPLC, and the recently emerging SFC technique allow sample preservation without decarboxylation and decomposition, reliable separation of neutral and acidic cannabinoid species and, thus, direct identification and quantification of both neutral and acidic forms of phytocannabinoids in the extracted samples. In the past decades, LC has become an analytical platform of choice (HPLC-DAD and LC-MS) in first line for potency studies but also for untargeted analysis of cannabis and cannabis-based products. Despite the fact that vibrational spectroscopy methods, such as NIR, FTIR, FT-NIR and Raman spectroscopy are reserved for structural elucidation, in the last few years there is an evident trend of their utilization for rapid quantitative phytocannabinoid profiling. Although these vibrational spectroscopy techniques can provide rapid, versatile and non-invasive approach in qualitative and quantitative profiling and growth staging of cannabis plant and extracts, they demonstrate far higher LOD and LOQ than the described chromatography-'wet' methods, they are fast, inexpensive, non-destructive and require minimum (e.g., drying, grinding) or no sample preparation. Regardless of high instrumental costs and necessity of highly specialized personnel, NMR is considered as a highly accurate, reproducible and fast technique that offers quantitative analysis of cannabis without the need of pre-purification step, chromatographic separation or use of certified reference standards.