JWH-007.

JWH-007 is one of the naphthoylindoles from the laboratory of John W. Huffman, who prepared numerous cannabimimetic indoles to understand what the CB1 and CB2 receptors recognise. Its structure differs from that of JWH-018 only by a methyl at position 2 of the indole, and this is exactly the kind of minimal variation the series was intended to test: the structure-activity study published in 2005 by Huffman and colleagues systematically compared the 1-propyl and 1-pentyl naphthoylindoles with and without this methyl. The compound behaves as a cannabimimetic agonist: ChEMBL reports a Ki of 9.5 nM at CB1 from the 1994 article, and, in the rat, it substitutes for CP55,940 in drug discrimination (Wiley et al., 1998). As a benchmark in the same series, JWH-018 lies around 9 nM at CB1 and 2.9 nM at CB2 (Wiley et al., 2012). Nothing is published on TRPV1, GPR55, PPARγ or 5-HT1A, and there is no controlled study in humans: neither dose, tolerance nor dependence is characterised. What is documented in humans is limited to the detection of the molecule in the hair of chronic consumers of Spice-type mixtures, where two to six synthetic cannabinoids are found in the same segment (Hutter et al., 2012).

Source

An entirely synthetic molecule, absent from hemp and from any living organism. It figures among the synthetic cannabinoids sought in the hair of consumers of Spice-type mixtures (Hutter et al., 2012), and in the lists of the EUDA and of UNODC recording the synthetic cannabinoids reported (Zangani et al., 2020). None of this relates to hemp or to cannabidiol products.

No known biosynthetic pathway: the molecule is produced by no plant or living organism. It belongs solely to synthetic chemistry, described here by chemical class only.

European Union

The substance is not listed in the Annex to Council Framework Decision 2004/757/JHA (consolidated version of 12 January 2026), which lists the new psychoactive substances controlled at European Union level; control is a matter for national law. It appears in the lists of the EUDA and of UNODC recording the synthetic cannabinoids reported (Zangani et al., 2020), which is monitoring and not control. It does not appear in the schedules of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances (green list of the INCB, 35th and 36th editions). France cites this molecule by name in annex IV of its list.

France

JWH-007 is classified as a narcotic in France, and cited under its own name. The ANSM consolidated list (updated 16 February 2026) cites it in annex IV, under the entry « JWH-007 ou 1-pentyl-2-méthyl-3-(1-naphthoyl) indole », as an example (« notamment ») of the generic family of the « indol-3-yl methanones »: a substituent on the indole nitrogen of the alkyl, haloalkyl, halobenzyl, alkenyl, cycloalkylmethyl, cycloalkylethyl, methyl-oxane, 1-(N-methylpiperidin-2-yl)methyl or 2-(4-morpholinyl)ethyl type, and a naphthyl, benzyl, phenyl, cyclopropyl or adamantyl group on the carbon of the methanone bridge. This family was introduced into annex IV by the decree of 31 March 2017 (JORF of 6 April 2017), whose text, as re-read, already cites JWH-007. It is therefore not the clause on tetrahydrocannabinols (annex III since the decision of 6 February 2026) that applies. Production, possession, transfer, transport and use fall under the criminal law on narcotics.

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

Family

Synthetic CB receptor agonist › New psychoactive substance

Class

naphthoylindole

Verification

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

Wikipedia (English)

JWH-007 (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. 1Huffman JW, Dai D, Martin BR, Compton DR. Design, synthesis and pharmacology of cannabimimetic indoles. Bioorg Med Chem Lett 1994;4:563-566 (Ki for JWH-007 read from ChEMBL) (new tab)DOI 10.1016/s0960-894x(01)80155-4
2. 2Wiley JL, Compton DR, Dai D, Lainton JAH, Phillips M, Huffman JW, Martin BR. Structure-activity relationships of indole- and pyrrole-derived cannabinoids. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 1998;285:995-1004 (new tab)PMID 9618400
3. 3Järbe TUC, Gifford RS. « Herbal incense »: designer drug blends as cannabimimetics and their assessment by drug discrimination and other in vivo bioassays. Life Sci 2014 (JWH-007 and JWH-015 substituted for CP55,940 in the rat, from Wiley 1998) (new tab)
4. 4Huffman JW, Zengin G, Wu MJ et al. Structure-activity relationships for 1-alkyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indoles at the cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors: steric and electronic effects of naphthoyl substituents. Bioorg Med Chem. 2005;13(1):89-112 (new tab)PMID 15582455
5. 5Wiley JL, Smith VJ, Chen J, Martin BR, Huffman JW. Synthesis and pharmacology of 1-alkyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indoles: steric and electronic effects of 4- and 8-halogenated naphthoyl substituents. Bioorg Med Chem. 2012;20(6):2067-2081 (JWH-018 values in table 1) (new tab)PMID 22341572
6. 6Hutter M, Kneisel S, Auwärter V, Neukamm MA. Determination of 22 synthetic cannabinoids in human hair by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. J Chromatogr B. 2012;903:95-101 (new tab)PMID 22835826
7. 7Mercier G, Mohamed KA, Zagzoog A, et al. In vitro pharmacological activity of twenty-eight synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists at the type 1 and 2 cannabinoid receptors. Neurochem Int. 2025 (abstract: class toxicities) (new tab)PMID 40876783
8. 8Zangani C et al. The e-Psychonauts' 'Spiced' World: assessment of the synthetic cannabinoids' information available online. Curr Neuropharmacol 2020 (JWH-007 in the UNODC, EUDA and NPSFinder lists) (new tab)PMID 32116194
9. 9ANSM, consolidated list of substances classified as narcotics, updated 16 February 2026 (annex IV, « indol-3-yl methanone » family, JWH-007 cited as an example) (new tab)
10. 10Order of 31 March 2017 amending the order of 22 February 1990: « indol-3-yl methanone » family of annex IV (Légifrance, JORF of 6 April 2017) (new tab)
11. 11PubChem, Compound Summary CID 10360860, JWH-007 (new tab)

SMILES

CCCCCN1C(=C(C2=CC=CC=C21)C(=O)C3=CC=CC4=CC=CC=C43)C

Machine-readable entry (JSON)

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