Pink Kush and Gorilla Glue: nerolidol versus caryophyllene, origin unknown among three parents

How do these two strains really differ?

In three ways, none of which is a number. In descriptions, Pink Kush leads with nerolidol, while Gorilla Glue features caryophyllene. The first strain has no established parents, while the second descends from three named strains. The first has five producers behind it, the second four, and none of them provides both at once.

The leading terpene is the most visible of these three differences, as it appears in every registration entry. In Gorilla Glue, caryophyllene tops the list of shares in every collected description, regardless of who prepared the product. In Pink Kush, the top of the list jumps around: in seven descriptions, it is nerolidol, while in two descriptions of the same entry, Aurora, it is sometimes myrcene and sometimes limonene that come before it. The assignment records nerolidol for this strain, as it aligns after reconciling both databases, but the reconciliation itself is not unanimous.

The origin separates them even more sharply. Gorilla Glue has three named parents in the graph: chem's sister, sour dubb, and chocolate diesel. The entry from which this was taken, Leafly, now leads under the name Original Glue, because after the settlement with the glue manufacturer in 2017, breeders lost the right to the commercial label and changed the names of their lines. For Pink Kush, the parent field remains empty and is meant to stay that way: public descriptions situate it with the OG Kush family, none provide a pair of parents, and adding them by intuition would create a connection in the graph that no one has confirmed.

The third difference is pharmaceutical. Pink Kush is prepared by Aurora, Polfarmex, S-LAB, Synoptis Pharma, and Tilray, while Gorilla Glue is found on the shelf from CanPoland, Four 20 Pharma, PhytoPur Bio, and Suprobion. Both lists are mutually exclusive, so anyone familiar with one of these strains from a specific package will not buy the other under the same brand.

What connects them?

Six names of terpenes and nothing in the lineage. Bisabolol, humulene, caryophyllene, limonene, linalool, and myrcene appear in the descriptions of both strains; the profiles diverge only at the seventh name, as for Pink Kush it is nerolidol, while for Gorilla Glue it is pinene. The common ancestor graph shows none.

The six common names are a weaker coincidence than they appear. All belong to a set that Polish databases use to describe most pharmaceutical entries, so the repetitive skeleton of the profile speaks more about the way the raw material is described than about the kinship of the plants. All the information lies in the order, and both databases present the order differently.

They are also connected by the fact that each has a namesake in the cluster. Pink Certz dzieli from Pink Kush the first word of the name and the leading terpene. Balasa, also sold as Gorilla Girl, dzieli wyraz z Gorilla Glue and caryophyllene at the top of the shares. A repeated word in the trade name is not proof of kinship: none of these four names has a sibling recorded in the project.

There is nothing to search for in the other direction. The sibling field is empty in both entries, and for Pink Kush, the parent list is also empty, so the graph has nothing to connect these two names even indirectly. The last thing that ties them together is the mode of issuance: both are raw materials from the pharmacy, not products from the store.

Why do two sources provide different compositions for them?

Because they describe different registration entries and abbreviate them differently. For Pink Kush, limonene, linalool, and myrcene appear only in one of the two sources, while for Gorilla Glue, bisabolol and humulene behave the same way. Both profiles have the same status in the entry: the sources differ in composition.

This is most clearly seen in one entry from Four 20 Pharma. The database budcare.pl assigns it shares where caryophyllene leaves the rest of the list far behind, while medweed.pl lists myrcene in the first place for the same entry, ahead of caryophyllene. The described product is one and the same, from the same pharmacy, yet the order comes out reversed. Discrepancies even occur within one database: one entry from Aurora received two separate descriptions in budcare.pl, in which both the list composition and the scent differ.

We do not provide percentage shares for terpenes, and these examples explain why. If the numbers from such a list were parts of a whole, each would sum to one hundred. Meanwhile, seven lists for Pink Kush sum to 14 in this database, two descriptions for the Aurora entry to 87 and 91, and five lists for Gorilla Glue range between 64 and 98. The denominator is therefore different in each entry and has not been provided anywhere, so the percentage placed next to the terpene name would pretend to be a measurement.

The discrepancy cannot be resolved in favor of one of the databases. Neither publishes the method or date of measurement, and both describe the trade name, not a specific batch. For Pink Kush, the difference concerns three names present on one side, for Gorilla Glue two, and that is as much as can be said honestly.

What has been shown for nerolidol, the leading terpene in Pink Kush?

Two things, both on mice and none on humans. The first study concerns pain and inflammatory cytokines, the second the seizure threshold and markers of oxidative stress. Neither studied dried flower, smoking, or vaporization, and the doses given refer to pure terpene administered to the animal.

The first was signed by Fonsêca DV, Salgado PR, de Carvalho FL, Salvadori MG, Penha AR, Leite FC, Borges CJ, Piuvezam MR, Pordeus LC, Sousa DP, Almeida RN, in 2016, Fundamental & Clinical Pharmacology, PMID:26791997, rodent model (mouse). Nerolidol (200-400 mg/kg) reduced the number of abdominal contractions induced by acetic acid in mice and lowered the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-1beta; the authors suggested the involvement of the GABAergic system in the analgesic effect, as opposed to the opioid mechanism and potassium channels.

The second was signed by Hojjat SH, Rasouli F, Shakeri F, in 2026, Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria, PMID:42447923, rodent model (mouse, oral administration). Oral nerolidol (25-100 mg/kg) prolonged latency to seizures induced by pentylenetetrazole (MCS and GTCS phases) and reduced markers of oxidative stress in the brain.

The boundary of both results is stated directly. It has not been shown that nerolidol alleviates anxiety or insomnia in humans; both available studies concern rodents and describe analgesic, anticonvulsant, and antioxidant effects, not sleep or mood. None of this transfers to the strain as a whole: nerolidol stands next to profilu Pink Kush six other names, and the proportions from the pharmacy were not replicated in any of these experiments. The terpene itself has in the cluster in a separate discussion.

What has been shown for caryophyllene, the leading terpene in Gorilla Glue?

Also two studies and also on mice, but with a better-described mechanism. Caryophyllene binds to the CB2 receptor and acts through this receptor in both experiments with anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. This is the most well-documented position from the entire profile of both strains, which does not mean that the documentation concerns dried flower.

The older study was signed by Gertsch J, Leonti M, Raduner S, Racz I, Chen JZ, Xie XQ, Altmann KH, Karsak M, Zimmer A, in the year 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), PMID:18574142, using a mouse model (in vivo) and in vitro (receptor binding, human cells). (E)-caryophyllene selectively bound to the CB2 receptor (Ki = 155 nM) and inhibited carrageenan-induced paw edema in wild-type mice, but not in CB2 receptor knockout mice (Cnr2-/-), indicating a CB2-dependent mechanism; the study did not include any anxiety tests.

The newer study was signed by Klauke AL, Racz I, Pradier B, Markert A, Zimmer AM, Gertsch J, Zimmer A, in the year 2014, European Neuropsychopharmacology, PMID:24210682, using a rodent model (mouse). Oral caryophyllene reduced the late inflammatory phase of pain in the formalin test in a CB2 receptor-dependent manner, with no effect on the early phase; in a neuropathic pain model, it alleviated thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia without developing tolerance with chronic administration.

The boundary of these two studies is recorded in the commission as follows. Neither of the two studies tested caryophyllene on humans or in inhaled form from dried flower; both works concern oral or systemic administration in mice in pain and inflammation models, not sleep or mood. When comparing, it's easy to forget the simplest thing: caryophyllene is also part of the Pink Kush profile, just at a lower level, so none of these results are the property of one of the two names. The terpene has its own page in the cluster.

How quickly does each one start to work?

Equally quickly or equally slowly, as the route of administration determines this, not the name on the package. None of the sources describing these strains provide a separate timeline for them, and the studies mentioned above on terpenes measured something different than the onset of effect.

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.

The difference between these two strains does not affect any of the above numbers. It is influenced by the form in which the material reaches the patient, and whether the dried flower goes to an inhaler or to a product prepared in a pharmacy. This is determined by the attending physician and the content of the prescription, not the strain description online.

What side effects have been reported for each of these two strains?

Separately, nothing has been reported for either that could be distinguished. Reports go to the registry under the batch number of a specific package, and the cultivar name does not appear in it, so comparing the safety of these two names cannot arise, and the difference in the number of reports would indicate availability, not risk.

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.

The scale of availability diverges here twice. Pink Kush has eight pharmacy listings, Gorilla Glue four, so even if someone counted reports by trade names, they would primarily measure how many packages were on the shelf. To compare the safety profile of two cultivars, a study would be needed, which no one has conducted.

How many registration entries are behind each of these names?

Eight for Pink Kush and four for Gorilla Glue, if counted according to the pharmacy listing on which this cluster is based. Hence the gap in declared potency: for the first strain, the THC content ranges from 16.2-24.2%. For the second, the same measure reaches from 18.0 to 26.4%.

The range is not the bracket of a single manufacturer and differs from the number on the packaging. It consists of several separate registered entries, each declaring its own nominal value, around which a deviation of one-tenth is given both upwards and downwards. Therefore, the extremes come from two different products, not from one package, and should not be read as a spread within a single batch.

These two ranges become interesting only against the backdrop of the rest of the cluster. The Pink Kush range repeats in fourteen other names and is the most common in this collection, while the Gorilla Glue range does not repeat at all and has the widest extremes of all eighty-five cultivars. A complete list of items available in pharmacies leads to a separate aggregate page.

The registered name carries a number within it; for example, the entry Cannabis flos Synoptis Pharma has the content written on the label. We provide such a name without this component, and the content separately as a range, because the number from the label is the declared value, the same one to which the deviation pertains. Taken out of context, it looks like a measurement result from a specific package, but it is not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Pink Kush and Gorilla Glue related?

No. Gorilla Glue has three named parents in its pedigree graph, while Pink Kush has an empty parent field, so there is nothing to connect. Not a single name repeats in the pedigrees of both sides.

Which one has a better-established terpene profile?

Gorilla Glue, although both have the same status of contradiction between sources in their descriptions. In Gorilla Glue, caryophyllene leads in every description, while in Pink Kush, the top of the list depends on which registered entry is being read.

Why don’t you provide terpene shares in percentages?

Because the denominator is unknown and different in each entry. The shares for Pink Kush alone sum up to 14 once and to 91 another time, so the percentage placed next to the terpene name would pretend to be a measurement that no one has performed.

Where do the different power ranges for both strains come from?

From the number of registered entries. Each manufacturer declares its own value and its own deviation, and the range given in the text is the sum of these declarations, not the brackets of a single package.

Is either of these two strains stronger?

The ranges 16.2-24.2% and 18.0-26.4% overlap for a larger part of their length, so the question of which name is stronger is poorly posed. The specific entry from the pharmacy matters, not the cultivar name.

Does a different leading terpene change the behavior of the dried flower in the vaporizer?

The boiling point database records one entry for nerolidol, 275-277 °C, and for caryophyllene 256 °C at atmospheric pressure and 130 °C when reduced to 14 mmHg. The device setting is not the same as the temperature of the dried flower, so no setting can be derived from these numbers, and the method of administration is determined by the attending physician.

Can I buy this dried flower in a store without a prescription?

No. Both strains are pharmaceutical raw materials in the Rpw category and are dispensed by pharmacies based on a prescription. Dried hemp sold in stores without a prescription is a different product from a different shelf, with no common entry for this comparison.

Dried hemp is a pharmaceutical raw material dispensed by a doctor's prescription in the Rpw category, and advertising such products directed to the public remains prohibited.

The material is for informational purposes and does not replace the advice of a doctor or pharmacist.

Editorial text: ubocha.