Pinen in the pharmacy list: six strains and two studies on mice

• In the pharmacy list. It leads in 6 out of 85 strains and is the leading terpene for them according to pharmacy data.
• Evidence. 2 studies from 2015 to 2016, all on animals or in cell culture, none on patients using the herb.
• Temperature. 156.2 °C, with the measurement condition determining whether the number means anything.
• What we do not provide. Percentage share in the profile, as the denominator in the sources varies and the numbers are not comparable between strains.

What is pinen and where does it occur outside of cannabis?

Pinen is a monoterpene with the formula C10H16 and a molecular weight of 136.23. Pharmacy lists record it without specifying the isomer, and the reference data used by this site describes alpha-pinen with PubChem CID number 6654. Outside of cannabis, the LOTUS natural products database notes this compound among others in Camellia sinensis and Callistemon citrinus.

Differentiating isomers is not a mere editorial detail. The term on which this page stands describes the alpha variant, and the MeSH note on the same term states directly that beta-pinen is a separate commercially available compound. The pharmacy label provides only the word “pinen” and does not clarify which form is indicated in a given batch. The ChEBI classification describes alpha-pinen as a bicyclic hydrocarbon substituted with three methyl groups and assigns it the role of a plant metabolite, meaning a substance produced by the plant, not added to it.

The scent can be a misleading guide to this name. Among 74 entries on budcare.pl, whose ingredient lists mention this compound, a pine note is given in 28, a peppery note appears more frequently, in 31 entries, and an earthy note in 29. The association with pine has rather industrial roots: the MeSH note mentions the production of camphor, insecticides, solvents, and synthetic pine oil, while the physical description from CAMEO Chemicals speaks of a colorless liquid with a turpentine-like odor, lighter than water and insoluble in water.

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

It is unknown. No one has measured how much of this compound reaches the blood from the herb after vaporization or how quickly the body eliminates it, so the time frames given below describe the route of administration of the entire raw material, not the fate of a single molecule in a patient. However, the boiling point of the pure compound is known.

Reference collections record three entries for alpha-pinen: 156 °C at 760 mm Hg, 155 °C without specified pressure, and 313.2 °F, which converts to 156.2 °C. The values come from four collections: CAMEO Chemicals, HSDB, JECFA, and OSHA. None of these readings were marked as taken under reduced pressure, so there is no obstacle to comparing them. Not every compound in this table has such a convenient situation: for caryophyllene, there is a reading from below 14 mm Hg, and for humulene, the only entry comes from 3 mm Hg, and it cannot be compared with numbers measured under room conditions. The boiling point describes the behavior of a pure liquid in a vessel and is not a setting for a device or a guideline on how to administer the raw material.

The route of administration determines the course more than the strain itself. After vaporization, the substance passes from the lungs to the blood almost immediately, so the first sensations appear after a few minutes, 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 lasts six, sometimes eight hours. This leads to the most common mistake with oral administration: those who think nothing is happening after thirty minutes and take another dose will receive both doses at once. The above time frames describe the route of administration, not this strain; pharmacokinetic studies for a single cultivar have not been published.

What have studies shown about the effects of pinen?

Two studies. Both were conducted on mouse material: one describes the sleep of animals after oral administration, the other the culture of immune cells. None of them involved humans, and in the entire evidence base of this collection of pages, which includes twenty-two studies, humans as participants do not appear even once.

Differentiating models is not a bibliographic formality. The result from the culture speaks to what happens in a dish, and between the dish and the patient stand absorption, metabolism in the liver, and excretion. The result in mice concerns an animal to which the isolated reagent was administered to the stomach, not a human inhaling vapor from the herb. Two entries from these twenty-two do not even concern a mammal: one on farnesene is a study on transgenic radish and aphids, and a review of insect literature. With such material, it is fair to state what the measurement concerns, rather than transferring the conclusion to humans.

What has not been shown about pinen?

No anxiolytic or analgesic effects of pinen have been demonstrated in humans; available data only concern its effect on sleep in mice after oral administration and its anti-inflammatory action on mouse macrophages in culture. This statement closes the list, rather than opening it: apart from the two results described above, the evidence base has nothing more on this compound.

It has not been shown how much reaches humans from a portion of herb. No entry in the database measured the concentration in the blood after vaporization or combustion, so even if the result in mice were transferable to humans, it is unknown at what amount it would occur. The sleep study administered the isolated reagent to the stomach of the animals, which is a different route, a different dose, and a different species than inhaling vapor by a patient.

It has also not been shown that this component is responsible for anything in the action of the strain that lists it as the leading one. The pharmacy label describes the composition, not the effect. No study from the database compared two strains differing only by this component or checked what it does together with the rest of the plant’s content. The effect of the entourage is often cited as an explanation for such differences, but there is no measurement in this database that would confirm or refute it here.

Finally, no anxiolytic effect in humans has been demonstrated, although the result from 2016 is often summarized this way. The affinity for the benzodiazepine site, which is the same one that sedative drugs act on, was described in mice and measured with sleep, not anxiety. The authors noted the lack of effect on the intensity of NREM sleep and the duration of REM sleep, thus narrowing the result themselves. The statement about calming the patient has no support in this material, and the site that makes it adds it on its own.

What side effects have been reported after pinen?

For the name of the terpene itself, there are no reports. Publicly available data on harmfulness concern two other things: the pure industrial reagent, for which alpha-pinen has its own hazard statements regarding the skin, and cannabis herb treated collectively, for which the symptoms described below recur. There is simply a lack of an intermediate layer.

In the EU classification and labeling list, compiled based on 2036 reports from 51 notifications, two statements regarding the skin recur for the pure substance: H315, which means skin irritation, present in 83.2% of reports providing a hazard code, and H317, which means the possibility of causing a skin allergic reaction, present in 66.1%. The statement about respiratory irritation did not exceed the ten percent threshold, below which the compilation does not show the code at all, so the repeated thesis about respiratory irritation by terpenes has no confirmation here. The classification describes a liquid in industrial packaging, not vapor from a vaporizer, and transferring it directly to pharmacy herb would be an abuse.

Reports of adverse effects are collected for a medicinal product with a batch number, not for the name of a strain, so the following concerns cannabis herb as a group of raw materials. The most frequently reported symptoms are dry mouth, red eyes, and increased heart rate. Less commonly described are dizziness upon rapid standing, daytime drowsiness, and temporary worsening of short-term memory, 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 cannabis herb in Poland do not separate them by individual products.

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

Six entries from the pharmacy list: Black Tuna, Island Sweet Skunk, L.A Confidential, Mimosa, OG Kush, and Penelope. Together, they account for ten catalog numbers out of one hundred forty-one collected in this compilation, placing this component among the two least frequently indicated leading terpenes.

The distribution within this six is very uneven. Island Sweet Skunk is the only entry supplied by more than one producer: under this name, reports from S-LAB, Synoptis Pharma, and Tilray stand, together five catalog numbers, which is half of the entire pool. The remaining five strains have one number and one supplier each, respectively Aurora with L.A Confidential, Bliss Pharma with OG Kush, Canopy Growth with Penelope, and S-LAB with the two other names.

This list comes from pharmacy labels, not from our own measurement: it indicates which terpene the producer identified as leading for their registered entry. The composition may vary in subsequent batches, licenses expire, and new entries come into circulation with their own declarations, so the compilation should be read together with the current list of available strains. Herb sold over the counter is in a separate category and is not the same raw material as the entries listed below.

Do profile databases indicate the same strains as the pharmacy list?

Not fully. Profile databases list this compound in the composition of forty-two strains from this compilation, but recognize it as leading only in six, and of this six, five names overlap with the pharmacy list. One entry diverges in one direction, and another in the opposite.

The divergence looks like this. For the strain Mimosa, the pharmacy list places this component first, while the shares provided by the profile database indicate caryophyllene. Conversely, for Sweet Berry Kush: there, the shares give precedence to the discussed compound, while the pharmacy label mentions limonene. The remaining five names recognized by shares as leading are Black Tuna, Island Sweet Skunk, L.A Confidential, OG Kush, and Penelope.

The value of these forty-two entries varies greatly. Only for three strains do both profile sources describe the composition consistently. For eleven, the sources provide different sets, meaning one lists ingredients that the other does not know. For twenty-eight, the strain is described solely by one source and has nothing to compare it with. Island Sweet Skunk remains the only case where both sources consistently place this compound at the top of the profile.

Why do we not provide the percentage of pinen in the profile in numbers?

Because we do not know the denominator. In the budcare.pl database, seventy-seven entries have the share of this component provided, but the sum of the shares of all terpenes in a single entry takes on thirty-one different values, from fifty-eight to one hundred twenty-five. A number without a denominator looks like a measurement, but it is not.

The median of these sums falls at eighty-five. A full hundred is given by six entries, and three exceed it, which in a share record should not happen at all. Since the total sometimes falls below the full scale and sometimes exceeds it, a single number next to the name of the component does not indicate what part of what it constitutes. Therefore, we provide the composition as composition: what is in the profile and in what order, without pretending to be precise.

Additionally, two lists in the same source do not agree with each other. The ingredient list on budcare.pl mentions the discussed substance in seventy-four entries, while the share table lists seventy-seven, so three entries have a number without an entry on the list. The second database, medweed.pl, does not provide shares at all, only the order: the substance appears in eleven out of sixty-five of its descriptions, with it being at the top in three.

Frequently asked questions about pinen

Does pinen have anxiolytic effects in humans?

This has not been demonstrated. The evidence base of this site contains two studies, both on mouse material, and none of them measured anxiety in patients. The 2016 study described sleep in mice after oral administration, not human anxiety behavior.

At what temperature does alpha-pinen boil?

Reference collections provide 156 °C at 760 mm Hg and 155 °C without specified pressure, and the Fahrenheit reading, 313.2 °F, converts to 156.2 °C. None of these readings indicated measurement under reduced pressure, so they can be compared with each other.

Is the boiling point a setting for the vaporizer?

No. The boiling point describes a pure liquid in a laboratory vessel, while the herb is a mixture of many substances in plant material. This value does not imply any device setting, and this site does not provide such a setting.

How many strains in Polish pharmacies have pinen indicated as leading?

Six: Black Tuna, Island Sweet Skunk, L.A Confidential, Mimosa, OG Kush, and Penelope. They account for a total of ten catalog numbers out of one hundred forty-one collected in this compilation.

Can pinen irritate the skin?

The pure industrial reagent can. In the EU classification and labeling list, most reports provide a statement about skin irritation and a statement about the possibility of causing a skin allergic reaction. This concerns the liquid in industrial packaging, not the herb from the pharmacy.

Does pinen from the herb penetrate the blood after vaporization?

This has not been measured. Available data do not include measurements of the concentration of this substance in human blood after vaporization of the herb, so the question of penetration and the duration of its presence in the body cannot be answered with a number today.

Cannabis herb is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by prescription in the Rpw category, and its use is determined by the attending physician. The material is informational in nature, describes the state of evidence, and does not replace medical advice.

Editorial text: editorial team ubucha.pl.