Cannabis 101: Choosing a Strain

Another challenge facing the marijuana newcomer is choosing the proper strain.

Frankly, this may not be too much of a concern when you’re just starting out. Similar to learning the nuances of wine tasting, it takes a somewhat more trained “palette,” if you will, to really start to see the differences between strains. Perhaps this is just me tracing my weed roots back to the black market, when you really didn’t know what kind of strain it was because your dealer only had one kind of weed, and you were going to take it regardless.

After more than a decade of using marijuana, and considering that going into a dispensary is like a cannabis Ben and Jerry’s with tons of “flavors” from which to choose, I can honestly say I am only recently beginning to appreciate the subtleties of strain variants.

Sativa:
Sativas are generally considered to be the more “mental” strain of cannabis. It tends to help with anxiety, depression, anger. For me, it’s what takes off that edge and helps me be less reactive to potential sources of stress. The high is felt more in the head and eyes.

Indica:
Indicas are the other side of the coin. They are the “body” high strain. An indica can be felt all through your body and can be of great help for muscle aches, inflammation, cramps and general pain relief.

CBD:
Relatively new to the strain market is the high CBD strain. CBD bred strains have an extremely low THC percentage and are geared toward conditions that benefit from it but whose patients can’t, or don’t want, the psychoactive high that accompanies traditional strains.

Most strains out there are going to be some form of hybrid with varying ratios of indica/sativa. Most dispensaries can give you full strain information on each type. All marijuana has CBD in varying amounts. The CBD strains are bred to increase the CBD and decrease the THC.

If this all seems too much, don’t stress. If you’re truly a newcomer to weed, you will get high off just about anything (except the CBD strain). Like the days of black market weed, just smoke/eat what you’ve got and have a good time. However, since we do live in a marvelous age of options, a nice hybrid (like Dutch Treat: 50% Sativa/50% Indica) is a sensible choice. Whether you’ll be able to really tell which effects are attributed to which strain or not, a hybrid is a well-balanced introduction bud and gives you general experience of both major strains.