Linalool: present in forty-seven profiles, leading in none

What is linalool and where is it found outside of hemp?

Linalool is a monoterpenoid alcohol with the molecular formula C10H18O and a molecular weight of 154.25, described in the PubChem database under CID 6549. Its systematic name is 3,7-dimethyl-1,6-octadien-3-ol. Outside of hemp, it is responsible for the scent of lavender, coriander, and rosewood, and PubChem notes its presence in over two hundred plant oils.

The entry in the chemical database is more precise than the entry on the strain card. PubChem maintains a separate record for the form with the configuration (3S), with the same molecular formula, under CID 67179. Thus, the same elemental composition describes two molecules that are mirror images of each other, while strain profile databases list one entry named linalool, without distinguishing between the two forms. Therefore, the description of a specific flower does not indicate which of them was detected or in what proportion they stood next to each other.

Besides essential oils, the same compound is sometimes noted in apples, grapes, and citrus fruits, and in the food industry, it functions as a flavoring substance evaluated by the FAO and WHO expert committee on food additives. For our summary, this means one thing: the question about linalool is not a question about something specific to hemp. It is one of the most widely distributed monoterpenes in the plant world, which in hemp flowers may be one of the components of the aromatic mixture, but may also be completely unrecorded.

How long does it take for linalool to reach the body and how long does it stay?

It is unknown. No one has published measurements tracking the concentration of linalool in human blood after vaporizing hemp flower, so there is simply no answer expressed in minutes. However, the boiling point of the pure substance is known, and it is often confused with the answer to this question.

Four records come from the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, the Human Metabolome Database, safety data sheets prepared by ILO and WHO, and from studies by the food additives committee. The source does not assign a specific record to a specific database, so we do not do that either. None of these measurements were taken under reduced pressure, which is convenient for linalool: all four refer to conditions comparable to each other, and the atmospheric value calculated from them is 195.5 degrees Celsius.

Boiling of pure liquid in a flask and the release of the compound from crushed resin in the device's chamber are, however, two different phenomena. The first number does not imply any setting for the second, and the text that provides it as a recommendation for the device states something that the measurement does not contain. The experience that the patient feels depends not on a single terpene, but on how the raw material was administered.

The route of administration determines the course more than the variety itself. After vaporization, the substance passes from the lungs to the blood almost immediately, so the first sensations appear after a few minutes, the intensity increases for another ten to thirty minutes, and the whole effect lasts for two to four hours. After ingestion, the raw material first passes through the intestine and liver, so the first sensations are awaited from half an hour to two hours, and the episode can last six, sometimes eight hours. Hence the most common mistake with oral administration: anyone who thinks nothing is happening after thirty minutes and takes another dose will receive both doses at once. The above ranges describe the route of administration, not this variety; pharmacokinetic studies for a single cultivar have not been published.

What have studies shown about the effects of linalool?

Two studies, both on mice. The evidence base for this entire summary consists of twenty-two entries spread over eleven terpenes, and none of them involved humans; two do not concern mammals at all. For linalool, there are two inhalation studies on rodents, with not a single result from cell culture.

The older one dates back to 2009 and was published in the journal Phytomedicine, signed by Linck VM, da Silva AL, Figueiró M, Piato AL, Herrmann AP, Dupont Birck F, Caramão EB, Nunes DS, Moreno PR, Elisabetsky E. Mice kept for 60 minutes in a chamber saturated with linalool at concentrations of 1% and 3% exhibited prolonged sleep induced by pentobarbital and lowered body temperature; the 3% concentration reduced locomotor activity, while coordination in the rota-rod test remained unchanged. Model: rodent, mouse, inhalation (PMID:18824339).

A newer study was published in 2024 in the journal NeuroSci, authored by Wagner JK, Gambell E, Gibbons T, Martin TJ, Kaplan JS. With short inhalations of vapor, designed to mimic inhalation in humans, linalool exhibited anxiolytic effects in the elevated plus maze in female mice when doses were spread over 30 minutes, and in males only with a single inhalation; the combination of subthreshold linalool with cannabidiol produced a synergistic effect only in females. Model: rodent, mouse, vapor inhalation (PMID:39728677).

The methods of both studies differ enough that the results cannot be summed. In the first, the animals spent an hour in a chamber filled with vapor of the compound, while in the second, they received short inhalations designed to resemble human inhalation. The first measured sleep duration after barbiturate administration and body temperature, while the second assessed behavior in a maze. Both describe the behavior of the animal under imposed conditions, not the symptoms in a patient after pharmacy-grade dried flower.

What has not been shown about linalool?

Nothing has been shown in humans. Neither of the two studies involved humans, neither measured the concentration of the compound after vaporizing the flower, and the newer one adds a caveat that popular strain cards remain silent about: the result varies depending on the sex of the animal and the dosing schedule over time.

None of these studies involved humans. The newer one additionally shows that the result depends on the sex of the animal and the method of administration, so the statement 'linalool calms' without these caveats has no basis even in the rodent model.

Breaking down this statement into parts shows how much of the popular thesis remains. Anxiolytic action was observed in 2024 in females when doses were spread over thirty minutes, and in males only with a single inhalation. The same experiment conducted on males with a spread dose would not show any effect at all. The sex of the animal and the method of administration are not mere methodological details, but conditions upon which the result depends.

It has also not been shown that the state achieved in the chamber can be obtained with a pharmacy-grade dose of dried flower. Mice from the 2009 study breathed air saturated with the pure compound for an hour; a person vaporizing the flower inhales a mixture of many substances for several minutes, in which linalool is just a fraction. No one has measured what portion of it passes into the vapor under such conditions or how much reaches the bloodstream. Finally, it has not been shown that the described synergy with cannabidiol, visible only in females and only at subthreshold doses, translates to any product available in Polish pharmacies.

What side effects have been reported after linalool?

No side effects have been reported, because there is nowhere to report them. The reporting form indicates the product, not a single aromatic component, so there is no entry in Polish data describing linalool itself. Separately, there is a chemical classification of the pure substance, and it is often mistakenly cited as the safety profile of a strain.

In the European inventory of classification and labeling, compiled by PubChem under CID 6549, company reports describe pure linalool with labels H315 (causes skin irritation), H317 (may cause an allergic skin reaction), and H319 (causes eye irritation). This is a classification of the substance in concentrated form, used in industry and cosmetics, and pertains to contact with skin or eyes. It does not describe vapor from a vaporizer, in which the compound is a fraction of the mixture, and it cannot be transferred to dried flower without measurement, which no one has performed so far.

The symptoms the patient inquires about concern the raw material as a whole, not its individual component.

Reports of adverse effects are collected for medicinal products with a batch number, not for the strain name, so the following pertains to hemp dried flower as a group of raw materials. The most frequently reported symptoms are dry mouth, red eyes, and increased heart rate. Dizziness upon rapid standing, daytime drowsiness, and temporary worsening of short-term memory are less frequently described, as well as anxiety that increases with dosage. A separate issue is medications taken concurrently, especially sedatives and those affecting coagulation: their assessment requires knowledge of the entire list of preparations, not just the description of the plant. We do not provide the frequency of these symptoms numerically, as public compilations for hemp dried flower in Poland do not separate them by individual products.

Which strains from Polish pharmacies have linalool as the leading terpene?

None. The field for the leading terpene in the pharmacy list, on which this compilation is based, includes only six names, and linalool is not among them even once. All eighty-five strains are assigned one of six other compounds, and this page describes the presence in the composition, not dominance.

The distribution of these six names is clearly uneven. The top two positions in the table together encompass fifty strains, which is well over half of the collection, while the two rarest occur only six times each. The total adds up to eighty-five, so there is no strain in this list without an assigned leading terpene. Therefore, the zero for linalool is not a gap in the data, but a complete answer.

The absence of linalool in this field is, however, a property of the source, not the plant. The pharmacy list assigns one compound per position and does so from a closed dictionary of six names, so a terpene outside of this six cannot appear in it, even if it ranks high in the profile. Therefore, the question of dominance and the question of presence in the composition have two different answers here, and conflating them into one is the most common mistake in popular strain compilations.

Resolving this difference requires consulting a source other than the pharmacy label. Profile databases list a whole set of terpenes detected in the strain, and it is they, not the list, that associate linalool with specific trade names. How many there are will be addressed in the next section.

How many strains from this compilation contain linalool in their composition?

Forty-seven out of eighty-five. That many cultivars described on these pages have linalool listed in the terpene set by at least one of the two profile databases. This is over half of the collection, so a compound absent in the leading terpene field turns out to be one of the more frequently noted in composition descriptions.

This frequency looks completely different in each of the sources. The service budcare.pl lists linalool in seventy-seven out of one hundred forty-six entries it describes, which is over half of its own collection. The service medweed.pl lists it in eight out of sixty-five. The same plant, two very different pictures of composition, and that’s before comparing specific names.

The table below collects all forty-seven entries along with information on which source lists this terpene with them. The listed strains are dispensed by prescription and are not available for mail order; the over-the-counter dried flower is a completely different assortment and belongs to a separate category of the store.

The list is a collection of names, not a ranking. The order is alphabetical, as neither of the two sources provides a size that could be reliably compared between strains. The value of mere presence on this list is only determined by the comparison of both databases.

Do both profile sources confirm linalool in the same strains?

No. Among the forty-seven strains containing linalool, only five are listed by both services simultaneously, and only one, Biscuit Runtz, has a complete set of terpenes consistent in both databases. The remaining forty-two entries rely on a single description.

The distribution is as follows. Thirty strains are described exclusively by budcare.pl, as medweed.pl does not recognize them at all. Sixteen have descriptions in both services, but the terpene profiles differ, and in twelve of those sixteen, the contentious ingredient is indeed linalool: eleven times it is mentioned only by budcare.pl, and only once by medweed.pl, in the case of Equipos.

The medweed.pl service lists terpenes in order of weight, providing a second, independent measurement of the same thing. In eight entries where linalool is present, it ranks third once, fourth five times, and fifth once. The only occurrence in the first position is a description listing exactly one terpene and nothing else, so the order means nothing there.

This is why we refuse to provide percentage shares alongside terpene names. In seventy-seven entries where budcare.pl lists linalool along with a number, the sum of all declared shares occurs once in forty-six and once in one hundred twenty-five, across thirty-two different variants, with a median of eighty-six. Five of these entries exceed one hundred, which is simply impossible for a part of a whole. A number without a known denominator looks like a measurement, but it is not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does linalool induce sleep?

This has not been demonstrated in humans. Two studies compiled on this page concern mice: in one, the animals slept longer after receiving barbiturates, and in the other, the females behaved less anxiously. Transferring such a result to human sleep after vaporizing hemp flower has no basis in any measurement.

Which strain from a Polish pharmacy has the most linalool?

This cannot be determined from the available data. The profile databases provide shares without a common denominator, and their sums for individual entries range from forty-six to one hundred twenty-five, so comparing two strains would be comparing two different scales.

At what temperature does linalool boil?

PubChem collects records for this compound that fall between 194 and 200 degrees Celsius, with the calculated atmospheric value being 195.5 degrees. None of these measurements were taken under reduced pressure. The boiling point of the pure substance is not the setting for a vaporizer and does not yield any recommendations regarding the device.

Is linalool from lavender the same compound as in hemp?

Yes, the molecular formula is identical and is C10H18O. However, PubChem maintains a separate record for the (3S) configuration, and the strain profile databases list one entry named linalool, without distinguishing between mirror forms. Therefore, the strain card does not indicate which one was detected.

Can linalool cause allergies?

Reports from companies in the European inventory of classifications describe pure linalool as a substance that can trigger a skin allergic reaction. This pertains to the concentrated form and contact with the skin. For the vapor from hemp flower, where the compound constitutes a fraction of the mixture, no such measurement has been published.

How many studies on linalool are included in the database of this compilation?

Two, both on mice and both with inhalation administration: a study from 2009 in the journal Phytomedicine and a study from 2024 in the journal NeuroSci. The entire body of evidence consists of twenty-two entries spread across eleven terpenes, and none of them included humans.

Dried hemp is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor's prescription in the Rpw category. The material is informational in nature and does not replace the advice of a doctor or pharmacist.

Editorial text: redakcja ubucha.pl. The status of the list of strains available in pharmacies is maintained by the current availability review.