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Plate 376 of 545Verified

JWH-073

PubChem records this structure as (1-Butyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-1-naphthalenylmethanone.

Also known as1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl) indole · 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indole · 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)-1H-indole

(1-butylindol-3-yl)-naphthalen-1-ylmethanone

PubChem CID
10471670
Measurements
1
InChIKey
VCHHHSMPMLNVGS-UHFFFAOYSA-N

I · Summary

What is known

Published passages, each quoted whole and attributed to the database that published it. Two blocks are written here rather than quoted, and both say so where they stand: the synthesized summary at the top, which may draw only on the passages beneath it, and the history note, which cites the works it came from. Every claim in either carries a marker to its source.

What it is

  • 1-butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indole is a DEA Schedule I controlled substance. Substances in the DEA Schedule I have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse. It is a Cannabimimetic agents substance.

Recognized use

  • JWH-073 was designed and evaluated in basic scientific research to investigate structure activity relationships in the cannabinoid system.

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)DEA; Office of Diversion control-Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section: JWH-073: 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indole (Synthetic Cannabinoid in Herbal Products) (March 2011). Available from, as of November 18, 2011: https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drugs_concern/spice/spice_jwh073.pdf

  • The popularity of these THC-like synthetic cannabinoids has significantly increased throughout the United States, and they are being abused for their psychoactive properties as reported by law enforcement, the medical community, and through scientific literature.

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)DEA; Microgram Bulletin. March 2011. Washington, DC: Drug Enforcement Admin. Available from, as of November 18, 2011: https://www.justice.gov/dea/programs/forensicsci/microgram/mg2011/mg0311.pdf

How it acts

  • /Synthetic cannabinoid/ agonistic activity on the CB1 receptor is responsible for elevating mood and inducing a feeling of well-being. Some /synthetic cannabinoid/ users have reported effects similar to or even stronger than those obtained by smoking cannabis, such as physical relaxation, changes in perception, and mild euphoria.

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647

  • ... The butyl homolog of JWH-018, JWH-073 (naphthalen-1-yl-(1-butylindol-3-yl)methanone), which seems to bind more specifically to the CB1 receptor. The latter has been recently shown to act similarly to JWH-018, although it is less potent in inhibiting neurotransmission and slower in producing internalization of cannabinoid receptors.

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647

Behavior carries the pharmacological classes and the acute-effect durations, with plasma half-life kept separate from duration of effect.

In the body

  • ... The lack or low content of /JWH-018 and JWH-073/ in urine requires detailed identification of their metabolites, which are excreted with urine and are present in blood. Using gas and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, /investigators/ identified a series of metabolites in urine samples from humans and rats that were products of the following reactions: (a) mono- and dihydroxylation of the parent compounds with hydroxyl groups located at aromatic and aliphatic residues, (b) carboxylation, (c) N-dealkylation and (d) N-dealkylation and hydroxylation. The prevailing urinary metabolites in humans are monohydroxylated forms, while N-dealkylated and N-dealkyl monohydroxylated forms are fou…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 21481654Grigoryev A et al; J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci 879 (15-16): 1126-36 (2011)

  • ... This study evaluates nine human recombinant uridine diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) isoforms and human liver and intestinal microsomes for their ability to glucuronidate hydroxylated metabolites of 1-naphthalenyl-1(1-pentyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-methanone (JWH-018) and (1-butyl-1H-indol-3-yl)-1-naphthalenyl-methanone (JWH-073), the two most common synthetic cannabinoids found in K2 products. Conjugates were identified and characterized using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry, whereas kinetic parameters were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography-UV-visible methods. UGT1A1, UGT1A3, UGT1A9, UGT1A10, and UGT2B7 were shown to be the major enzymes involved, sh…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 21746969Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3186213

  • ... Two subjects that consumed JWH-018 primarily excreted glucuronidated conjugates of 5-(3-(1-naphthoyl)-1H-indol-1-yl)-pentanoic acid (>30 ng/mL) and (1-(5-hydroxypentyl)-1H-indol-3-yl)(naphthalene-1-yl)-methanone (>50 ng/mL). Interestingly, oxidized metabolites of both JWH-018 and JWH-073 were detected in these specimens, suggesting either metabolic demethylation of JWH-018 to JWH-073 or a nonreported, previous JWH-073 exposure. Metabolic profiles generated from a subject who consumed a mixture of JWH-018 and JWH-073 were similar to profiles generated from subjects who presumably consumed JWH-018 exclusively. Oxidized metabolites of JWH-018 and JWH-073 were of the same pattern, but JWH-01…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 21506519Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3105467

  • ... Results from four urine specimens collected after individuals reportedly self-administered either JWH-018 or a mixture of JWH-018 and JWH-073 showed the following: (1) all tested metabolites were excreted in high concentrations, (2) (omega)- and (omega-1)-hydroxyl metabolites were exclusively excreted as glucuronic acid conjugates, and (3) approximately 5%-80% of the (omega)-carboxyl metabolites was excreted as glucuronic acid conjugates. ...

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 21740038Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3155992

History, discovery and cultural use

— Not in this archive. PubChem, ChEMBL and the Human Protein Atlas publish pharmacology, regulation and toxicology, and none of them publishes a heading for when JWH-073 was first made, by whom, or how it has been used. That is a gap in the databases this site reads and not a gap in the literature — the history of these compounds is written, at length and under peer review, in the works below. This site does not summarize them; it says where they are. Where a published passage above happens to touch origin or traditional use, it appears inside the entry that carries it.

Histories of this field

Scholarship on psychedelics generally, not on JWH-073 specifically. Whether any of these treats this compound is a question for the book, not for this page.

  • Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic

    Traces mescaline and the peyote and San Pedro cacti from pre-Columbian ritual use through nineteenth-century chemistry to twentieth-century psychiatry and the counterculture.

    Jay M. Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. Yale University Press, New Haven and London; 2019. ISBN 9780300231076.

  • Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelicsopen access

    Essays on the international and cross-cultural history of psychedelic science, deliberately decentring the standard North American and European account.

    Dyck E, Elcock C, editors. Expanding Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA; 2023. ISBN 9780262546935 (paper), 9780262376891 (open access). doi:10.7551/mitpress/14417.001.0001.

  • Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers

    Botany, ethnography and chemistry of the principal hallucinogenic plants, by the founder of modern ethnobotany and the chemist who first synthesized LSD.

    Schultes RE, Hofmann A, Rätsch C. Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers. 2nd ed. Healing Arts Press, Rochester VT; 2001. ISBN 9780892819799.

  • Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind

    The tradition of scientific self-experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and its part in the emergence of psychology and of modernism.

    Jay M. Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind. Yale University Press, New Haven; 2023. ISBN 9780300257946.

  • Ancient Psychoactive Substances

    Archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence for psychoactive plant use across the ancient world.

    Fitzpatrick SM, editor. Ancient Psychoactive Substances. University Press of Florida, Gainesville; 2018. ISBN 9780813056708.

  • History and Current Status of Psychedelics and Entactogens for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders

    A chapter tracing psychedelic and entactogen research from earlier ritual use through the mid-century research period to current clinical trials.

    Stroud C, Posey Norris SM, Matney C, editors. History and Current Status of Psychedelics and Entactogens for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders. In: Exploring Psychedelics and Entactogens as Treatments for Psychiatric Disorders: Proceedings of a Workshop. National Academies Press, Washington DC; 2022. NBK587225.

    Workshop proceedings record what participants said; they are not a consensus statement of the National Academies.

  • Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Aspects of Peyote and Mescaline: Clinical and Forensic Repercussions

    Peer-reviewed review covering the isolation, synthesis, pharmacology and ritual use of peyote and mescaline.

    Dinis-Oliveira RJ, Pereira CL, da Silva DD. Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Aspects of Peyote and Mescaline: Clinical and Forensic Repercussions. Current Molecular Pharmacology 12(3):184–194; 2019. doi:10.2174/1874467211666181010154139.

Institutional archives

  • Heffter Research Institute Funds and coordinates clinical research on psilocybin, and keeps records of the studies it has supported since 1993. Sponsors the research it archives.
  • Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Sponsors clinical research, chiefly on MDMA-assisted therapy, and publishes an archive of historical and contemporary documents. A sponsor and an advocacy organization, not a disinterested archive; its clinical programme has a commercial arm.

The rest of this dossier

  • Affinity — 1 measurement in this archive, equilibrium constants kept apart from functional readouts.
  • Toxicology — 5 published passages, plus any assay in this archive bearing on toxicity.
  • Legal — DEA Schedule I, with the passage it was read from.
  • Systems — where this compound’s targets are transcribed, by brain region and tissue.

Passages via PubChem descriptive sections, aggregating DrugBank, LiverTox, FDA, DEA, HSDB, EPA. Each is quoted whole and attributed to the database that published it. The only prose written here about JWH-073 is the history note, which says so on its face and carries a reference for every claim in it.

II · Identity

Structure and descriptors

Descriptors are computed here with RDKit from the structure PubChem returns — not from the archive's stored copy, so an edited local structure cannot reach this table.

2D structural depiction of JWH-073
Depiction served by PubChem for CID 10471670. Not redrawn here, so the picture and the identity come from the same record.
Formula
C23H21NOR
Molecular weight
327.43g/molR
Exact mass
327.1623DaR
cLogP
5.83R
TPSA
22.0ŲR
H-bond donors
0R
H-bond acceptors
2R
Rotatable bonds
5R
Aromatic rings
4R
Heavy atoms
25R
Fraction sp³
0.174R
Formal charge
0R

Computed with RDKit 2025.09.2 from the SMILES returned by PubChem. Audit run 26/09/2026.

Bemis–Murcko scaffold

O=C(c1cccc2ccccc12)c1c[nH]c2ccccc12

Shared with AM-2201, JWH-018, JWH-122, JWH-210. All families

III · Behavior

Behavioral summary

Class, mechanism, and the duration of acute effects — each quoted from the record or trial that publishes it. Duration of effects and plasma half-life are shown separately, because they are different quantities and diverge by a factor of three or four.

Classification

Duration of acute subjective effects

—

No controlled human trial reporting a duration for this compound is cited here. The archive holds no other record of one either. A duration is not inferred from a chemical relative.

Plasma elimination half-life

How fast the body clears the drug — not how long the effects last. The two diverge sharply: LSD is cleared with a half-life of about 2.6 h while its subjective effects run 8–12 h.

No half-life is published for this compound in the sources this site reads.

Primary pharmacological drivers

ChEMBL holds no curated mechanism-of-action record for this compound. The measured affinities below are the evidence this archive has for what it binds.

Mechanism, as published

Quoted verbatim from the database named after each passage, never summarized.

  • /Synthetic cannabinoid/ agonistic activity on the CB1 receptor is responsible for elevating mood and inducing a feeling of well-being. Some /synthetic cannabinoid/ users have reported effects similar to or even stronger than those obtained by smoking cannabis, such as physical relaxation, changes in perception, and mild euphoria.
    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647
  • ... The butyl homolog of JWH-018, JWH-073 (naphthalen-1-yl-(1-butylindol-3-yl)methanone), which seems to bind more specifically to the CB1 receptor. The latter has been recently shown to act similarly to JWH-018, although it is less potent in inhibiting neurotransmission and slower in producing internalization of cannabinoid receptors.
    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647

IV · Clinical

Clinical description

Where this compound's substance class sits in ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR, and how much of the recorded literature speaks to each domain of a mental status examination.

Filed under Cannabinoid Receptor Agonists

  • 6C41Disorders due to use of cannabis
  • 6C42Disorders due to use of synthetic cannabinoids

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR): Cannabis-Related Disorders. Category names only — the manual is in copyright and no diagnostic criterion is reproduced here.

MeSH does not separate plant cannabinoids from synthetic agonists; ICD-11 does. Both chapters are listed because the class alone does not decide which applies.

How much has been written about each domain

The clinical domains, and how many of the records this archive holds for this compound say something under each. What the terms mean, and the word list behind every spoke, are set out in the method.

Affect0Mood2Perception2Cognition0Thought process0Thought content1Psychomotor activity2Insight and judgment0
This measures the literature, not the compound. Each spoke counts how many of the 7 records this archive holds for this compound say something under that domain — 2 at the widest ring. A long spoke means the subject has been written about, not that the effect is strong, and a spoke at the center means nothing here discusses it rather than that nothing happens. The terms behind each domain are listed in the method.
Mood 2
matched on “anxiety”, “mood” · in PMID 22007163; Toxicology: Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)
Perception 2
matched on “hallucinat” · in PMID 22007163; Toxicology: Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)
Thought content 1
matched on “paranoi” · in PMID 22007163
Psychomotor activity 2
matched on “agitat” · in PMID 22007163; Toxicology: Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)

V · Systems

Systems physiology

Where the targets this compound binds are transcribed — brain regions on the left, peripheral and autonomic tissues on the right. A join of two measurements, not a claim about what the compound does to either.

019 nTPM

Square-root ramp · shared scale across both plates

Shading is transcript level — not affinity, and not affinity combined with expression. Outlined but unshaded organs hold none of this compound’s resolved targets above the atlas’s detection threshold. Anatomy from EMBL-EBI Anatomogram (Apache License 2.0); regions identified by Uberon (uberon.org), CC BY 3.0.

Brain regions

Regions where this compound's measured targets are transcribed. Linked from the plate above.

  1. cerebral cortex

    18.6 nTPM
  2. cerebellum

    18.3 nTPM
  3. pituitary gland

    17.3 nTPM
  4. basal ganglia

    15.1 nTPM
  5. amygdala

    13.3 nTPM
  6. hippocampal formation

    13.2 nTPM
  7. hypothalamus

    9.0 nTPM
  8. midbrain

    2.1 nTPM
  9. spinal cord

    1.7 nTPM
  10. retina

    1.1 nTPM

Peripheral & autonomic

Tissues outside the CNS expressing the same targets — where a compound's bodily effects become possible.

  1. colon

    10.0 nTPM
  2. small intestine

    8.1 nTPM
  3. adrenal gland

    4.6 nTPM
  4. thyroid gland

    3.9 nTPM
  5. stomach 1

    3.4 nTPM
  6. urinary bladder

    3.4 nTPM
  7. lung

    2.8 nTPM
  8. smooth muscle

    2.3 nTPM
  9. skeletal muscle

    1.8 nTPM
  10. salivary gland

    1.8 nTPM
  11. spleen

    1.4 nTPM
  12. pancreas

    1.2 nTPM
  13. heart muscle

    0.8 nTPM
  14. kidney

    0.6 nTPM
  15. duodenum

    0.6 nTPM
  16. liver

    0.1 nTPM

Each row joins two published measurements and nothing else: the affinity this archive holds for the compound at that target, and the transcript level the Human Protein Atlas reports for that target’s gene in that region. Bars scale with expression only. Expression is not activation — a receptor transcribed in a region is a receptor available to be bound there, which is a weaker and more defensible claim than saying the region is affected.

Expression data from Human Protein Atlas (CC BY-SA 3.0), RNA expression, nTPM (normalized transcripts per million), consensus tissue dataset. Uhlén M, et al. Tissue-based map of the human proteome. Science. 2015;347(6220):1260419.

VI · Profile

Affinity rosette

The strongest measurement at each of 1 molecular targets. Cell-line and whole-organism screens are excluded here — they carry no affinity — and appear in the table below.

CB1 — Ki 8.05 pXCB1579
Fig. Radius is pX = −log₁₀(value in M), that is 9 − log₁₀(value in nM), computed from the normalized measurement. Hatched wedges are equilibrium binding constants (Ki, Kd); dashed outlines are functional readouts (IC₅₀, EC₅₀, AC₅₀, potency), which answer a different question and are not pooled with them. Rings mark whole pX units from 5 to 10, labeled every second ring in the gutter at the top. Where a target carries several measurements, the strongest is drawn.

VII · Toxicology

Toxicological profile

What has been measured, and what has been published — kept apart, and neither scored. There is no risk rating on this page; the archive once carried one, identical for every compound, produced by a stub.

Measured in this archive

Assays that bear on toxicity, drawn from the same ChEMBL records as everything else on this page. They are measurements of what a compound binds or does to cells — not verdicts about what it does to a person.

No hERG, cytochrome, cytotoxicity or transport measurement exists for JWH-073 in this archive.

As published

Quoted verbatim from the database named after each passage, never summarized — a summary of a toxicology statement is a new claim.

Human Toxicity Excerpts

  • /SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS/ Although gastrointestinal effects, such as nausea, vomiting, and retching, are the most common after consumption of /synthetic cannabinoids/, cardiovascular effects, such as extremely elevated heart rate and blood pressure, chest pain, and cardiac ischemia are among the most dangerous consequences. Occasional inappropriate laughter, injected conjunctiva, xerostomia, and nystagmus have been descri…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647

  • /SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS/ In general, the desired effects of /synthetic cannabinoids/ include a sense of empathy and well-being. However, there is an increasing number of clinical reports describing patients presenting for emergency medical care after smoking /synthetic cannabinoid/ products, the most common symptoms being nausea, anxiety, agitation/panic attacks, tachycardia, paranoid ideation, and hallucinations. /Synth…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)PMID 22007163Full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3187647

  • /SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS/ Symptoms described with synthetic marijuana use are elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, palpitations, diaphoresis, tremulousness, anxiety, and agitation. Other physical findings may include mydriasis, although this finding is not consistent with intoxication. Psychosis with auditory and visual hallucinations is mentioned in rare circumstances, most commonly with individuals who have und…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)Dan Quan et al; Emergency Medicine Reports 32 (20): 237-247 (2011) https://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/14639670/1131750640/name/Legal+Drug+of+Abuse+2011.pdf

  • /SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS/ ... Accidental overdosing with a risk of severe psychiatric complications may be more likely to occur because the type and amount of cannabinoid may vary considerably from batch to batch even within the same product. In general, there may be a risk of the appearance of a full CB receptor agonist leading to life-threatening conditions if overdosed (unlike THC, which acts only as a partial agonist)…

    Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB)EMCDDA; European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction; Thematic Papers: Understanding the Spice Phenomenon (November 2009). Available from, as of November 21, 2011: https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/thematic-papers/spice

  • For more Human Toxicity Excerpts (Complete) data for 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl) indole (9 total), please visit the HSDB record page.

Published passages via PubChem toxicology sections, aggregating Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB), RTECS, LiverTox. No figure on this page is scored, ranked or combined into a risk level.

VIII · Evidence

Every measurement

One row per published value. The identifier in the last column resolves to the ChEMBL assay record it was read from.

Equilibrium binding constants 1

Ki and Kd — a concentration at equilibrium. Directly comparable across rows at the same target.

TargetClassTypeValue (nM)pXOrganismAssay
CB1Cannabinoid receptorsKi8.908.05RATPMID 11408610
P
PubChem
C
ChEMBL
R
Computed here with RDKit
D
Derived here from the stored measurement

IX · Trials

Registered clinical trials

Studies filed with ClinicalTrials.gov that name this compound as an intervention. A registered trial is a protocol, not a result — status and enrollment are printed beside every row, and withdrawn studies are counted rather than hidden.

— No registered study names JWH-073 as an intervention. That is an absence of registered research, not evidence about the compound. Most of this archive has never been the subject of a registered trial.

Records from ClinicalTrials.gov (U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH), API v2. A study is listed against a compound only when a verified name for that compound appears as a whole word in one of the study's own intervention names. A short code must appear as written, and a name the registry uses for something else (Aleph, a vaccine maker) is not matched. Title matches are not accepted. The matched name and the intervention text it matched are shown with every row.

Searched as JWH-073 · 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl) indole · 1-Butyl-3-(1-naphthoyl)indole. Run this search at the registry.

A registered trial is a protocol somebody filed with the registry. It is not a result, and nothing on this plate says whether JWH-073 worked.

XI · Literature

Sources behind this dossier

The papers this compound's values were read from, ranked by what each contributed. Not a review of the field.

Every paper below is one some value on this page came from — a binding constant, a passage of pharmacology or toxicology, or a measured duration. Each entry says what this archive took from it. Nothing else is claimed about any of them: the title is the study’s own account of itself, and a summary written here would be an assertion with no source behind it.

  1. 01

    Evidence for a new G protein-coupled cannabinoid receptor in mouse brain

    Breivogel CS, Griffin G, Di Marzo V et al. · Molecular pharmacology 2001

    • · 1 measurement at 1 target (Ki), strongest CB1 at 8.05 pX

    PMID 11408610

  2. 02

    Beyond THC: The New Generation of Cannabinoid Designer Drugs

    Fattore L, Fratta W · Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience 2011

    • · Mechanism of Action
    • · Human Toxicity Excerpts

    PMID 22007163