Sativa, Indica, Ruderalis - Is it all BS?

[Son of Hobbes]

On the @KIS podcast, there was a guest who stated the same thing and hosts an alternative to the cannabis cup. The strain that won had less than 15% THC and one that did very well was all the way down to 6%

Terpenes and balance will hopefully guide the future of cannabis breeding as legalization and usage normalizes.

The first commercial grow I worked at has a strain called Maui that consistently tests at 8%. Got EVERYONE high as shit, but.... you can't sell 8% weed in the market lol.

 

[jdm61]

Hobbes, I have heard someone say that the old THCV may counter some of the bad characteristics of some pot, like paranoia racing heart what have you. So might be that when you get a super racy strain of sativa that does those bad things, it might be because that high THC the content has either been bred out or the proportions are not what they once were?

 

[jdm61]

One theory that I read about THCV is that, unlike regular THC, it doesn’t necessarily have a ceiling. Which is to say that you can only get so high on regular THC, but with THCV the effect does not taper off as much. I also read that the the maximum length of the THCv effect Is shorter, maybe no more than two hours

The first commercial grow I worked at has a strain called Maui that consistently tests at 8%. Got EVERYONE high as shit, but.... you can't sell 8% weed in the market lol.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

One theory that I read about THCV is that, unlike regular THC, it doesn’t necessarily have a ceiling. Which is to say that you can only get so high on regular THC, but with THCV the effect does not taper off as much. I also read that the the maximum length of the THCv effect Is shorter, maybe no more than two hours

We used to full blown hallucinate off of mexican brick/schwag.

 

[jdm61]

Yes, but not ALL of it, right? Not all square grouper are created equal. Lol some stuff that I am reading says that the proportion of THCV in addition to the general condition of the weed may cause that. If you think about that all Mexican weed, how much Did you have to smoke to get high in the first place? Did it vary from batch to batch! The THCV may have just made it more fun. I have heard some reports that say that the really “pure” sativa auto strains like Fastbuds Mexican airlines, Are more likely to give you that effect. I wouldn’t be surprised if say something like the world of seeds Thai Ryder or say the Dutch passion Durban poison auto might also give you that same affect

 

[jdm61]

I was just thinking about the good sold by the gram seedless weed that we started getting in like 1980 or so in Miami. I had not seen this stuff in Georgia from 78-80 nor did I see the hash that was floating around in Miami in 80-81. Some of the very early stuff was the classic Gainesville green which was about the color of a green polo shirt. Then around summer of 81, we started getting the gold sinsemilla which was slightly cheaper. As I previously stated I thought that was Jamaican stuff. But in that. What we really started seeing the most of like in the spring of 81 along with a lot of blond Lebanese hash, was a very dark $8-10 a gram weed with fairly dense buds that would get you super high, but I’m thinking it was more of a couch lock high. thought that the Gainesville Green was superior to the dark weed, but in hindsight, that’s probably because it had more of a sativa effect . So that dark weed may have been something similar to early skunk and in hindsight the color of it might be an indicator that it was the ancestor to some of the purple strains that we see today. But I would’ve not called purple back then.

 

[Doug58]

I agree wholeheartedly. I've always wondered why I'm chasing a high from brick weed buds back in the day. I figured most of that was tolerance but maybe not. I like edibles too and one thing I know absolutely is that a distillate high, which is 95% of dispensary edibles, is NOthing like an infusion you make yourself......no comparison. I like the convenience of distillate edibles but the high is nothing compared to something like butter. And, that has got to be a terpene related reponse in my opinion. Same thing with smoking pure distillate vs. a good blunt. I heard a cannabis medical researcher on a podcast yesterday who claimed that her research shows time and time again when testing double blind folks, hehe, that satisfaction and enjoyment of smoke was not correlated to potency but to terpene profiles, and mostly to the smell. You love the smell, you'll probably like that smoke. And mostly it was the hybrids that people picked in the mid-potency range as being most enjoyable.

I'm still chasing that high. I grew plenty of strains last year and the closest I got was a Fastbuds Mexican Airlines but a photo I grew, Gooey 13 I think, was pretty good. This year I have planted two other photoperiod strains as all my other seeds are Fastbuds and Afterthought Autos seeds and I have more than I will ever smoke of those in jars. I've been giving it away or making hash which I can throw in a freezer and take up less space.

I also make cannaoil to cook with and use in coffee or hot chocolate.

 

[Doug58]

Doug, I have been reading a little bit lately about that very psychedelic property. I remember back when I first started smoking, you would get some really good weed that would, as I used to say, send you off the cartoon land. I mean, I never saw my dog talk but I could’ve had an interesting daydream about my dog talking to some very bizarre cartoon characters in my head. One time my buddy and I said at our desk in our dorm room and watched cigarettes smoke swirling under our desk lamp for like 20 minutes and thought it was fascinating. What I have read recently says that some people think that the reason we don’t see that anymore is not because we have developed a type of tolerance that never permits that again. I know that if I went without smoking for a long time which I did a couple of times from my mid-20s to my early 40s, You would discover that not only did you get super high the first time you smoked but also that the weed had gotten a lot stronger in the ensuing years. LOL. So there was no real long-term tolerance but perhaps an absence of a certain substance that made you see those cartoons that was present in those tropical sativa‘s. As it turns out, it may be THCV.

I have had a few real trips back in the day, 70's and 80's where it seemed like I was on acid just from sharing a joint with someone. I took 30 years off from using weed due to employment but I retired so I can use anytime now and I live in a state where use, possession and growing is legal now. You can give anyone over 21 two and a half ounces and have 10 ounces in your home, grow 12 plants. As long as it is out of view from neighbors, other than from air or by binoculars the local and state police are now hands off.

 

[BII]

Everything related to consideration of cannabis 'strains' is relative, often subjective, made worse by, as can be seen in discussions, many trying to consider more than a single differentiating aspect. Cannabis species, sub-species, strains, etc. can be defined many ways: genetic marker/sequence similarities and differences; phenotypes/appearances, such as tall vs. short, wide vs. thin leaves; relative amounts of different substances, particularly cannabinoids and terpenes; presumed regional or other source of the 'strain, such as landraces; belonging to a 'family' (or whatever can call it), such as being in haze, cheese or blue family; etc. This is made even worse by many or even most trying to consider multiple aspects, some even taking a holistic view taking/weighing all these aspects into account.

We need to realize the terminology everyone uses is funky - even scientists don't agree. As an analogy, just think how people similarly classify people, including their 'race,' using terms such as 'Caucasian' or something perhaps based on genetics; 'Oriental' based on region; white/black/mixed based on 'color;' etc. Usable terminology (can't conveniently use gene sequences) is simply non-science based, and if it is science-based, often has little relevance/correlation with other ways of looking at 'strains.' There should be no expectations of consistency or even usable definitions with most 'strain'-related terminology. Usable terms, such as sativa, indica and ruderalis, are all useful descriptors, adjectives, with overall general common understanding of their being associated with a loose collection of variably-defined traits/characteristics. And everything is further complicated by most every 'strain' having been bred, hybridized, particularly since the 1960s/70s, to varying extents.

So, addressing this thread's topic/question: Yes, in many respects 'strain' terminology as commonly used involves a lot of "BS" in the sense it's largely subjective, depends on the definition/view/biases being applied. But the terminology is useful, since there is very often common understanding in context. For example, most everyone probably thinks of similar traits, appearance, etc. when we use terms like sativa or indica here on AFN.

 

[jdm61]

This is slightly embarrassing, but the craziest hallucinatory cartoon that I can actually remember I saw in that one session I was talking about where we were watching the smoke swirl around under a desk lamp for 20 minutes straight. What we were smoking was with my friend called a variant of the “Philadelphia Lowrider“ joint. In its purest ultimate form it took good pot, sprinkled a little hash on top of it and rolled it up in a paper that had been painted with a little stripe of hash oil on the bottom of the paper. I think this stuff I had was just really good sativa with a little bit of hash crumbled in it. When we went to my friends room to get a joint, he told us don’t take the big one because it’ll fuck you up beyond all recognition. Well, suffice to say, the smaller joint had the same effect. This was my freshman year in college and back in my freshman year at military boarding school in high school, some upperclassman had a dirty little toy that he probably got it Spencer gifts or something like that. I found a picture of it. It’s called the dirty monk and as you can see from the pictures when you press the monks head down, a dick popped up from under his robe. So, the messed up cartoon that I saw in my head when I close my eyes once that evening was the cartoon character Little Lulu walking along in a very roughly drawm background and all of a sudden she stopped and a dick popped up from under her little dress like the dirty monk. That was so fucking crazy that I remember it to this day. LOL
So it occurs to me 40+ years later that this really good trippy weed go searching in your brain for the strangest shit I can find and then edits that footage together into something even more weird. LOL