The Weekly Sesh — Vol. 12
Walk into almost any dispensary and the menu sorts itself into three neat buckets: indica (couch-lock, snacks, sleep), sativa (creative, social, up) and hybrid (somewhere in between). It's the first thing most of us learned about weed — and according to some pretty big studies, it's mostly vibes.
This week we're digging into where the indica/sativa split came from, what the science actually found, and what to read on a label instead. Spoiler: if you've been following along since Vol. 2 (Terps Are the New THC%), you already know where this is headed.
| The Weekly Sesh · Vol. 12 | ||
| Indica vs Sativa: Myth vs Reality | ||
| The menu myth | What studies found | |
| Genetics | Two distinct families | Labels "poorly" track the genome across 297 samples |
| Chemistry | Indica and sativa test differently | Terp profiles often indistinguishable across ~90,000 samples |
| Strain names | Same name, same plant | Same-name samples can differ as much as different strains |
| Real signal | THC% tells the story | A handful of terpenes drive the aroma we label |
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Rep the strain. Wear the culture. CRAZYSTRAINSTEES.COM | ||
Where "indica" and "sativa" came from
The names are old — way older than any dispensary menu. In 1753, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus named Cannabis sativa, and the plant he had in mind was the European crop grown for fiber and seed: basically, hemp. In 1785, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck described Cannabis indica, a plant from India grown for its psychoactive resin.
So originally, "sativa" meant the rope plant and "indica" meant the one that got you high. Over the following two centuries the terms got used loosely, swapped, and repurposed — and by the 1970s, consumers had flipped them into shorthand for effects: tall, narrow-leaf plants were "sativa" and supposedly uplifting, while short, broad-leaf plants were "indica" and supposedly sedating. That's the version that ended up on every menu.
| The Weekly Sesh · Vol. 12 | |
| How the labels got scrambled | |
| 1753 | Linnaeus names Cannabis sativa — the fiber & seed plant (hemp) |
| 1785 | Lamarck names Cannabis indica — the resin plant from India |
| 1970s | Consumer culture repurposes the names as effect labels: "up" vs "down" |
| 2021 | Nature Plants study of 297 samples: labels poorly match genetics or chemistry |
| 2022 | PLOS One study of ~90,000 samples: three terp families, none matching the labels |
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Rep the strain. Wear the culture. CRAZYSTRAINSTEES.COM | |
What the science actually found
The 2021 genome study. Researchers from Dalhousie University in Canada and Wageningen University in the Netherlands genotyped and chemically profiled 297 cannabis samples and published the results in Nature Plants. Their verdict: the sativa–indica scale "poorly captures" the plants' overall genetic and chemical variation. Lead researcher Sean Myles put it bluntly — the labels "are simply not reliable indicators of a plant's genetic or chemical composition."
Strain names didn't fare much better. Samples sold under the same name (they cited Lemon Haze and OG Kush) were often as genetically different from each other as samples with completely different names.
The 2022 big-data study. A team from the University of Colorado Boulder and Leafly crunched chemical data on nearly 90,000 samples from six states and published in PLOS One. They found that a sample labeled indica was likely to have a terpene makeup indistinguishable from one labeled sativa or hybrid. Some named strains were pretty consistent from batch to batch; Durban Poison, on the other hand, was described as "consistently inconsistent."
One of the researchers compared today's labels to a cereal box that only lists calories and fat. You're getting something, but not what you need to make a real choice.
So is the difference totally fake?
Not quite — and this is the interesting part. The 2021 study did find a weak real signal. Sativa-labeled samples tended to carry more terpenes with fruity, tea-like aromas, while indica-labeled samples leaned toward earthy terps like myrcene. The researchers even traced part of that earthy aroma to a small number of spots in the genome.
Translation: when growers and budtenders call something "indica," they're often reacting to how it smells, not to some deep family tree. The label is a nose call. And the differences were small enough that the overall chemical profile didn't split cleanly between the two camps.
What to read instead: the terp families
The 90,000-sample study found that commercial flower actually clusters into three main terpene groups. Think of these as a more honest menu:
| The Weekly Sesh · Vol. 12 | |
| The 3 terp families on real shelves | |
| Family 1 |
Caryophyllene + Limonene Peppery spice meets bright citrus |
| Family 2 |
Myrcene + Pinene Earthy, musky, fresh pine |
| Family 3 |
Terpinolene + Myrcene Herbal, floral, a little fruity |
| Source: CU Boulder / Leafly study, PLOS One, 2022. None of the three lined up neatly with indica, sativa or hybrid. | |
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Rep the strain. Wear the culture. CRAZYSTRAINSTEES.COM | |
How to shop like you read the study
- Flip the jar, not the menu. If the label or lab report lists terpenes, start there. The top two or three terps tell you more than the word "indica."
- Trust your nose. Since the labels are basically aroma calls anyway, smell is a legit tool. Fuel, citrus, pine, earth — notice which ones you vibe with.
- Keep notes. Jot down what you tried, the top terps and how it felt. After a few sessions you'll have your own personal map that beats any three-bucket system.
- Remember it's personal. Dose, setting, tolerance and your own body chemistry all shape the experience. Two people can smoke the same jar and feel different things.
None of this means your favorite strain names are meaningless as culture. Names like Gorilla Glue — the story behind our own Gorgeous George, told in Vol. 3 — carry history, lore and community. Just know the name is the legend; the terps are the receipt.
Quick note: this is general education, not medical advice. Effects vary from person to person, so talk to a healthcare professional if you're using cannabis for a health reason, and follow the laws where you live.
Rep the strain. Wear the culture.
Whether you're Team Indica, Team Sativa or now Team Terpene, there's a tee for that. Shop the full Crazy Strains lineup →
Next up on The Weekly Sesh: Monday's Strain Spotlight puts another legend from the Crazy Strains lineup under the microscope — origin story, lineage, terps and all.
