Indica or sativa?
Cannabis researchers say it’s just ‘marketing’
Buds from the Cannibis Sativa, left, and Cannibis Indica plants, two of the varieties of medical marijuana used by medical marijuana patients. Canabis users often believe that one type of cannabis produces a different psychoactive effect, while researchers in the state say that’s just myth.
Look at any cannabis retailer’s menu and you’ll see two kinds of cannabis, indica and sativa.
The commonly held belief is that one produces a “head high” while the other produces a “body high.” According to Healthline.com, for example, “Sativa has primarily an energizing effect, while indica has a relaxing effect and can help you sleep.”
Rino Ferrarese, who runs the Affinity Grow cannabis cultivation facility in Portland, said cannabis users believe there is a distinct difference between indica and sativa: “People swear by it and it works.”
“I believe that there is something to it,” he said. “Folks ask for an indica or sativa and that’s what works for them, and that’s what they request.”
Researchers, however, believe the difference between sativa and indica is nothing more than myth and marketing.
“I’m told by some people who go to dispensaries that they are told, ‘Use this for a head high; use this for a body high; use this If you want to facilitate sleep; use this for anxiety,’” said Deepak
Cyril D’Souza, the inaugural director of the Yale Center for the Science of Cannabis and Cannabinoids. “Most of that is not based on science. It’s anecdotal. The best way I can explain it is it’s a marketing ploy.”
D’Souza said that what matters — what drives the psychoactive experience — is the amount of THC and CBD, and the ratio between the two: “Whether it’s Cannabis indica or sativa doesn’t really matter.”
Ben Zachs, COO at cannabis chain Fine Fettle, said part of the reason they market one product as “indica” and another as “sativa” is because they care about “the history of the genetics” of their products, something he said they are “passionate about.”
“But at the same time, we understand that there’s a commercial reality as well, of what people default to and desire and want,” he said.
A brief history of cannabis
Ferrarese, a trained microbiologist, joked, What do you get when you put 120 taxonomical botanists in the room? You get 240 opinions.”
Cannabis was first described in 1753 by taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, who identified Cannabis sativa according to an article in the scientific journal, Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.
Thirty years later, French naturalist JeanBaptiste Lamarck was the first to differentiate between sativa and indica. He found one to be shorter and more psychoactive, while the other was taller and more fibrous.
It was referred to as “indica” because it was believed to grow wild in India, but UConn horticulturist Jessica LubellBrand said “that history is also questionable.”
The two strains of cannabis may have looked and grown differently decades ago, Lubell-Brand said, but she believes there are no pure, heirloom varieties of cannabis available any more.
Last year, following a cannabis conference, Lubell-Brand was given a cannabis seed labeled as “South Indian landraised heirloom,” but she doubts it is a pure indica.
“Perhaps 15, 20 years ago, there was more of a separation between cultivars,” she said. “But for decades, there have been these underground seed exchanges, so there’s so much crossing of stuff it would be hard to even separate that with what’s in the U.S. today.”
Zachs agreed. “Everything is so cross-bred that everything is a bit of a hybrid and everyone’s personal reaction is personal,” though he said indica varieties tend to grow faster.
“We generally sell more indica because it’s more available because generally for the plants to come to full maturity, it takes a little longer for sativa. That’s why you generally see more indicas on menus,” he said. “They’re generally a week less in flowering, we’ve found.”
As for their effect on humans when smoked or consumed, D’Souza said that genetic mixing means there is no difference between indica and sativa strains.
“These distinctions of cannabis sativa and indica may no longer be relevant, because these have been so inbred and crossbred, that there is no specific, pure sativa or pure indica,” D’Souza said. “These things have been genetically engineered and modified to the extent that you can’t really make these kinds of distinctions.”
Minor cannabinoids
D’Souza said the ratio between two cannabinoids, THC and CBD, is what produces the “high” a user experiences, but they are not the only two compounds contained in cannabis.
Zachs said terpenes, the compounds in cannabis responsible for its taste and smell, in concert with other chemicals in the plant, may be responsible for differences in the psychoactive experience, though he reiterated that “it’s very personal.”
“It’s really the makeup of the terpenes plus the cannabinoid profile and how that all mixes together,” he said, which is why flower, the raw plant material, is still the most popular cannabis product sold. “It creates a full entourage effect of everything working harmoniously together within the plants and in your body and endocannabinoid system.”
But D’Souza said the so-called minor compounds have little to no effect on the experience.
“The other constituents of cannabis like terpenes and other minor cannabinoids, as the name suggests, are extremely minor,” he said. “Their contribution to the overall effects of cannabis are trivial, especially at the levels that are contained in cannabis.”
“D’Souza said he is ‘unaware of any doubleblind, randomized, controlled studies showing that CBN either on its own or at a certain level in cannabis, promote sleep to a greater extent than a placebo or a type of cannabis that doesn’t have much CBN.”
“These are just creative ways of selling different products, but they’re not backed up by science,” he said.