Penelope (Cannabis flos Canopy Growth): low declared THC content and pinene

What is Penelope and where does this strain come from?

The lineage of Penelope is unknown: no available source provides its parents. It has reached Polish pharmacies as a registered product Cannabis flos, Canopy Growth, described by one source as a hybrid with a predominance of sativa, with a declared THC content in the range of 7.2-8.8%, which is one of the two lowest values in this comparison.

The entry "unknown" is not a gap to be filled here, but a result: the breeder has not announced the cross or the descriptions that can be found contradict each other. Penelope is not an exception in this regard, as 25 cultivars out of 85 present in this cluster have no established origin. Adding parents by intuition would cost more than it gives: once a cross is entered, it then travels across subsequent pages and after a few transcriptions, it stops differing in appearance from a lineage confirmed by the breeder.

What is known about this position surely fits into a few sentences. It is supplied by one manufacturer, the profile composition comes from one database, and the action labels that this database adds ("stimulating", "balanced") are its own catalog classification, not the result of measurement or clinical observation. The name Penelope itself is a trade designation and carries no information about composition or origin, and in the pharmacy list, a product description stands next to it, not the cultivar name.

Which manufacturers supply Penelope to Polish pharmacies?

One. The entire description pertains to one registered product from Canopy Growth, which the source database assigns to the medical brand Spectrum Therapeutics, that is, the medical arm of the same group. Therefore, there are no competitive versions for comparison and there is nothing to differentiate the table beyond what the registered name itself carries.

The number entered in the registered name is not the result of analyzing a specific batch, but a declaration, from which a deviation of up to one-tenth of the value is allowed. Eight spread in both directions gives a range from 7.2 to 8.8%, and that is why this text states a range, not a round number from the packaging. The same name also carries a declaration for cannabidiol, similar in size to the THC declaration, but we do not provide a calculated range for it, as such a field is not included in the order, and calculating it independently would mean placing a self-generated number in a text about a drug. The proportion itself is rare for pharmaceutical raw material: the remaining 64 products with a given range have a lower limit no lower than 16.2%.

Presence in the pharmacy is a separate matter from the permission itself. A product disappears from circulation when the manufacturer stops sending batches, when the wholesaler does not renew orders, or when the permission expires without extension. The database from which this composition description comes marks Penelope as withdrawn, so we treat it as a historical entry until a new supply appears. The current list of what can actually be purchased is kept separately, in an overview of strains currently available in pharmacies. Store category dried flower includes products available without a prescription and does not contain raw material dispensed by a doctor's prescription.

What does Penelope smell and taste like?

The source describing this product mentions three notes: pine, camphor, and pepper. This is a record of an impression, not a measurement result, and comes from one source, so it speaks more about what its authors expected than about what a patient feels when opening a jar from a specific batch.

The listed volatile components form a description consistent with what is seen in the profile. The resinous note corresponds to pinene, which leads in shares in this position; a sharper, spicy accent is usually associated with kariofilenem; mircen bywa opisywany as earthy and most often accounts for the background. What is missing from this description is also information: there is no citrus or floral note, as the base does not assign this position either limonene or linalool.

Numerical shares next to ingredient names have been deliberately omitted, and the reason is arithmetic. Three profile positions sum up to 60 in the source, not to one hundred, so it is unclear what portion of the material has been outlined at all or what is included in the missing remainder. In the same database, 145 positions yield 46 different sums, ranging from 14 to 125, with six exceeding one hundred. A number pulled from such a set appears to be a measurement, but it is a fraction with an unknown denominator.

How long does it take for Penelope to take effect and how long does the effect last?

The route of administration determines the outcome. Inhalation provides the first sensations within a few minutes, while ingestion takes several dozen minutes, and this difference is greater than any documented difference between cultivars. For Penelope itself, there is no measurement, so the ranges below describe dried flower administered one way or the other.

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.

Low declared content does not shift these ranges. The onset and duration depend on how the substance enters the bloodstream, not on how much a single dose carries. In this case, something else changes: at the lower boundary of the declaration, the same dose carries noticeably less active substance than at the upper boundary, and dosage adjustments are the responsibility of the attending physician, not the strain description.

What is known and what is unknown about the effects of Penelope?

Almost nothing is known about the strain itself. Clinical studies for Penelope have not been published, nor have they been published for any single cultivar, so only studies on pinene examined separately can be cited: in mice and in cell culture, not in patients consuming dried flower.

The first of these concerns sleep. The team of Yang H, Woo J, Pae AN, Um MY, Cho NC, Park KD, Yoon M, Kim J, Lee CJ, Cho S announced in 2016 in Molecular Pharmacology (PMID:27573669) the following: Orally administered (-)-alpha-pinene prolonged NREM sleep time in mice and shortened sleep latency (EEG/EMG recording), acting as a partial modulator binding directly to the benzodiazepine site of the GABA-A receptor, without affecting the intensity of NREM sleep or the duration of REM sleep.

The second study does not even concern the whole animal, only cells in culture. Kim DS and co-authors described in 2015 in The American Journal of Chinese Medicine (PMID:26119957) the following result: Alpha-pinene reduced the secretion of IL-6, TNF-alpha, and nitric oxide, as well as the expression of iNOS and COX-2 in LPS-stimulated mouse peritoneal macrophages in culture, by inhibiting MAPK and NF-kB pathways.

We record the boundary of both studies directly, as without it, it is easy to read them as a promise: No anxiolytic or analgesic effects of pinene have been demonstrated in humans; available data only concern the effects on sleep in mice after oral administration and the anti-inflammatory effects on mouse macrophages in culture. Beyond that, there remains descriptive material: catalog labels of action from the database and patient reports, which no one has collected in a way that allows them to be counted.

What side effects have been reported after using Penelope?

None under the name Penelope. This strain appears in the list as a single entry from one manufacturer, and reports are described by product batch number, not by plant name, so in public compilations, it is impossible to isolate what happened specifically after it, rather than after any other dried flower.

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.

There is also no public certificate of analysis for this entry that would link a specific batch to the profile description. The database on which we base the composition is a descriptive collection, not documentation of batch release: it does not contain batch numbers or testing dates, so it is impossible to trace from symptom to the material that preceded it.

At what temperature should Penelope be vaporized?

There is no setting assigned to this strain. The volatile components from its profile boil at widely varying temperatures: alpha-pinene around 156 degrees Celsius, myrcene around 167, and caryophyllene only above 250, so no single setting encompasses the entire set at once, and the distance between the extreme readings exceeds one hundred degrees.

The numbers from such a table describe a pure substance in the flask, not a plant in the chamber. The temperature displayed on the screen pertains to the heater or the incoming air, and the material can be cooler by several dozen degrees, depending on how densely it was packed and how long the inhalation lasts. We dedicate osobny tekst, to what happens to the volatile components during heating, jeszcze jeden.

Discrepancies between tables have measurable explanations. Some entries come from measurements under reduced pressure: caryophyllene boils above 250 degrees under atmospheric pressure, and in one of the sources, it is listed at 130 degrees at 14 mmHg, and both values are correct, only describing different conditions. For pinene, the difference is small, as sources provide 155 and 156.2 degrees, but the mere fact that there are two values is enough not to read either as a threshold. Where do these contradictions come from, rozbieramy przy tabelach temperatur.

Which strains are related to Penelope?

None. Sixty pedigrees in this comparison list named parents, and Penelope is not listed as either a parent or as a child of a documented cross, so there is no sibling to derive from. An empty list is the result here, not a lack of data.

The name also does not provide a clue, as none of the other 84 positions share even one word with Penelope. This is rare: in the same comparison, the term "kush" is carried by ten cultivars, of which five have established origins, and five do not have it at all, so a common word in the name is often confused with kinship more than anything else. With Penelope, there is not even such a temptation, as the name stands alone in the cluster.

What actually connects this strain with other positions is of a different kind. The same manufacturer supplies five more strains to Polish pharmacies, and a separate text about the raw material Canopy Growth collects them in one place. The declared content range matches the numbers from Equiposą, which is produced by someone else, so the convergence of declarations says nothing about genetics. Pinene leads in shares in six positions out of 85, and what this means for the patient, we break down at the ingredient itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Penelope a strain with stimulating effects?

The descriptive base assigns it the labels "stimulating" and "balanced", but this is a catalog classification, not a result of research. For a single cultivar, there is no measurement that would confirm or refute such a label.

Why is the THC content given as a range?

Because the manufacturer's declaration allows for a deviation of up to one-tenth of the value. For this entry, it gives a range from 7.2 to 8.8%, and a single number would suggest precision that the documentation does not promise.

Is Penelope currently available in Polish pharmacies?

The database from which the profile description comes marks this entry as withdrawn. Availability changes with supplies and permits, so we only maintain the current status in the list of strains available in Polish pharmacies.

What does an unknown pedigree for this strain mean?

It means that no available source provides the parents or that the descriptions contradict each other. This is not a gap to be filled with assumptions: in this comparison, there are 25 cultivars out of 85 with no established origin.

Does low THC content mean fewer side effects?

This does not arise from any data collected for this strain. Reports are described by the product's batch number, not by the cultivar's name, so comparing one strain to another has no basis.

Does the presence of pinen in the profile mean that the strain supports sleep?

No. The effect on sleep has been described for pinen itself administered orally to mice, in NREM sleep recordings, and not for dried flower taken by patients. Transferring such a result to a strain would be an overinterpretation.

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.

The editorial text was prepared by redakcja ubucha.pl.