AM-411.

AM-411 is a so-called classical cannabinoid: the tricyclic skeleton of Δ8-tetrahydrocannabinol, whose pentyl chain at position 3 is replaced by a 1-adamantyl group. This bulky substitution gives a high affinity for the CB1 receptor, measured at 6.8 nM at the rat receptor, against 52 nM for mouse CB2, a modest preference by a factor of about eight. It behaves as a full agonist of CB1 in a GIRK channel assay (Luk 2004), while having the lowest β-arrestin recruitment efficacy among the adamantylated compounds compared. In rats, it reproduces the behavioural profile of CB1 agonists (analgesia, hypothermia, catalepsy, reduced locomotion) and its effects are reversed by the CB1 antagonist SR-141716, which confirms a central action mediated by CB1. Nothing is published on TRPV1, GPR55, PPARγ or 5-HT1A, and human data are entirely lacking.

Source

An entirely synthetic molecule, absent from hemp as from any living organism. It was designed in the cannabinoid chemistry programme of Alexandros Makriyannis, at the Center for Drug Discovery of Northeastern University, to probe the binding pocket of the CB1 receptor and measure the volume it tolerates in place of THC's side chain (Lu 2005). No seizure of a product sold to the public is reported in the sources consulted.

No known biological pathway: AM-411 is produced by no plant and no microorganism. It is obtained only by chemical synthesis, described here only by its class, that of the adamantylated classical cannabinoids derived from Δ8-tetrahydrocannabinol.

European Union

No European text targets AM-411 by name: it is not among the substances named in the annex of Framework Decision 2004/757/JHA as supplemented by Directives (EU) 2017/2103, 2019/369, 2020/1687, 2021/802, 2022/1326 and 2025/2062, and it is not listed in any schedule of the 1971 Convention (Green List of the International Narcotics Control Board, 35th edition, 2024). National situations diverge: several Member States apply generic definitions of cannabinoid families that may encompass it, others stick to named lists.

France

AM-411 is named neither in the consolidated list of ANSM (updated 16 February 2026) nor in any ANSM decision. It does, however, fall under a generic clause because of its structure: annex IV of the decree of 22 February 1990 covers, since the decisions of 22 May and 3 June 2024 (classification applicable from 3 June 2024), “any substance derived from the benzo[c]chromene nucleus”, hydrogenated or not on ring A, substituted notably “at position 1 by a hydroxyl function, esterified or not”, “at position 3 by an adamantyl substituent”, “at position 6 by one or two alkyl groups” and “at position 9 by a ketone, alkyl, hydroxyalkyl or alkoxy function”. AM-411, a tetrahydrobenzo[c]chromene bearing a hydroxyl at position 1, a 1-adamantyl at position 3, two methyls at position 6 and a methyl at position 9, literally meets these criteria. The entry “Tetrahydrocannabinols, their esters, ethers, salts” of annex III (decision of 6 February 2026) covers tetrahydrocannabinol and its derivatives; its application to an analogue whose pentyl chain is replaced by an adamantyl is not established by the sources consulted. The status retained is that of a substance controlled by generic clause, not of a substance named explicitly.

Sources: EUR-Lex, UNODC, CND, ANSM, IUPHAR/BPS, ChEBI, EUDA. Our method.

Family

Synthetic CB receptor agonist › Research ligand or medicine

Class

classical

Verification

Classification, sources and binding values checked on 20 October 2026; text read against its sources and Wikipedia.

Wikipedia (English)

AM-411 (new tab)

Article paired by the molecule's structure (InChIKey), revision read on 19 October 2026. Read as a second opinion, never cited as a source.

1. 1Lu et al., Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2005: adamantyl cannabinoids, a new class of cannabinergic ligands (AM411 = compound 1a, lead compound) (new tab)PMID 15999995
2. 2Järbe et al., Behavioural Pharmacology, 2004: (-)-adamantyl-Δ8-tetrahydrocannabinol (AM-411), selective CB1 agonist; open-field behaviours and antagonism by SR-141716 in the rat (CB1 Ki 6.86 nM; CB2 Ki 52.0 nM) (new tab)PMID 15472574
3. 3Thakur et al., Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2013: novel adamantyl cannabinoids as CB1 receptor probes (table 1: AM411 = compound 1, Ki 6.8 nM at rCB1 and 52 nM at mCB2) (new tab)PMID 23621789
4. 4Luk et al., British Journal of Pharmacology, 2004: AM411 is a full CB1 agonist in a GIRK channel assay and desensitises slowly like Δ9-THC (new tab)PMID 15148260
5. 5McLaughlin et al., Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 2005: behavioural effects of the full agonist AM 411 in the rat (new tab)PMID 15894067
6. 6Järbe et al., Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 2016: AM4054, optimisation of the AM411 tricyclic scaffold, used as a discriminative stimulus (new tab)PMID 27264437
7. 7ANSM, consolidated list of substances classified as narcotics, updated 16 February 2026: « any substance derived from the benzo[c]chromene nucleus » clause (annex IV) and the entry « Tetrahydrocannabinols, their esters, ethers, salts » (annex III) (new tab)
8. 8PubChem, AM-411, CID 9799945 (new tab)

SMILES

CC1=CC[C@@H]2[C@@H](C1)C3=C(C=C(C=C3O)C45CC6CC(C4)CC(C6)C5)OC2(C)C

Machine-readable entry (JSON)

LLM ingestion format: a structured superset of the entry (identifiers, binding, versioned legal status). Full corpus.