Skip to content

Batch information on every product pageTHC < 0.3%Shipped from France10% off when you sign up

From the plant

CBNACannabinolic acid

The acid of CBN, formed by oxidation of THCA; excluded in France from the benzo[c]chromene class.

Hemp exemption
Level of detail

C₂₂H₂₆O₄

CAS 2808-39-1

Family
PhytocannabinoidMinor
Origin
Degradation product
First described
1965
Molar mass
354.44 g/mol

Updated on

In plain terms

CBNA is the acid form of CBN. The plant does not make it directly: it appears when the acid of THC (THCA) oxidises, mostly in ageing flowers. Almost nothing is known about its effects.

Receptors and activity

    Bar length follows the measured value (Ki, Kd, EC50 or IC50), on one scale shared by every entry, from 100 µM to 0.1 nM. A target with no cited value has no bar.

    Measured effects

    Not characterised. No placebo-controlled human trial has measured the effects of CBNA, so no level is shown.

    Levels computed from placebo-controlled human trials: difference from placebo on 100, at the dose and route stated. Read the method

    Pharmacology

    No biosynthetic pathway for CBNA, and therefore for CBN, has been identified; small amounts of CBNA found in some hemp samples point to oxidative degradation of THCA before decarboxylation (Maioli 2022), and a 1985 capillary gas chromatography study already classed CBN and CBNA as artefacts (Hanuš 1985). Its isolation and structure were published in 1965 by Mechoulam and Gaoni, together with those of cannabidiolic and cannabigerolic acids; a synthesis and spectroscopic characterisation were published in 2007 (Bastola 2007). Its decarboxylation gives CBN. No measurement of affinity at CB1 or CB2 receptors was found; one in vitro study reports that it mobilises intracellular calcium in human and mouse microglia (Pilchova 2026). In France, it is explicitly excluded, together with CBN, from the generic benzo[c]chromene class added to the narcotics list in 2024. No human dose has been characterised.

    Key sources.

    History

    Source
    Present in cannabis as an oxidation product of THCA

    Biosynthetic pathway

    No biosynthetic pathway has been identified. CBNA forms by oxidation (aromatisation) of THCA in plant material; its decarboxylation gives CBN (Maioli 2022).

    Classification

    Family, origin and source verification

    Family

    Phytocannabinoid › Minor

    Presence in the plant

    Artefact: formed by oxidation, light, heat or solvent

    Chemistry

    Type CBN · C5 side chain · acid form

    Verification

    Every fact on this entry was checked against its primary sources on 20 October 2026.

    Wikipedia (English)

    No dedicated article.

    References

    1. Maioli et al. 2022, Plants: oxidative origin of CBN and CBNA (new tab)PMID 36365350
    2. Mechoulam & Gaoni 1965, Tetrahedron: isolation and structure of cannabinolic, cannabidiolic and cannabigerolic acids (new tab)PMID 5879350
    3. Hanuš & Krejčí 1985, Acta Univ Palacki Olomuc: CBN and CBNA, artefacts (new tab)PMID 3161287
    4. Bastola et al. 2007, Planta Med: synthesis and spectroscopic characterisation (new tab)PMID 17354173
    5. Pilchova et al. 2026, Cell Commun Signal: calcium in microglia (new tab)PMID 42421050
    6. ANSM, consolidated list of narcotics (26/06/2026) (new tab)

    Identifiers

    Names

    Common name
    Cannabinolic acid
    IUPAC name
    1-hydroxy-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentylbenzo[c]chromene-2-carboxylic acid
    Other names
    CBN-A

    Identifiers

    Formula
    C₂₂H₂₆O₄
    CAS
    2808-39-1
    PubChem CID
    3081990(new tab)
    ChEBI
    234469(new tab)
    InChIKey
    KXKOBIRSQLNUPS-UHFFFAOYSA-N
    SMILES
    CCCCCC1=CC2=C(C3=C(C=CC(=C3)C)C(O2)(C)C)C(=C1C(=O)O)O

    Machine-readable entry (JSON)

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