Sativa vs Indica, Body vs headhigh..Just a Sales pitch??

[thedawn]

Does anyone who smoke weed or vape everyday ever really feel any difference between Indica and Sativa?
Do you get a body or a head high?
I call bullshit on these questions they ask at the dispensary. It's so dumb and unnecessary. Yet I say whatever. I wonder why these terms are still used.
It's legal now and the dispensaries should know better.
They're all sales pitch and to make it feel more exclusive.

 

[w01fg4ng]

This question/comment is frequent enough that it almost deserves to be stickied.

So you found yourself annoyed that the people selling you buds asked you noob questions like do you prefer indica or sativa? Brush it off and be happy that you aren't a total noob.

Just remember that they get payed like barely more than minimum wage and are basically there for a paycheck just like anyone else.

 

[The Network]

Yep, for the most part. Keep in mind a lot of "sativas" you'll find are like 55% sativa or only 65%, which is really more of a hybrid even though people call them sativas.

ALL weed will knock you out eventually if you get very high, it doesn't matter if it's a pure sativa with only the stimulating terpenes, it will knock you out after the initial rush.

Yes, there are indica leaning strains that energize me somewhat, and some sativa leaning ones that make me tired, but in general the more sativa the less of a weed hangover I have, and the more indica the more psychedelic and sedating it'll be.

 

[w01fg4ng]

^ Same. Durban poison is the only pure sativa that i regularly see at the stores.

The key to controlling the sales process is having an idea of what you want before you go into the store and be the one asking the questions.

It's your money right? Be assertive, OP.

 

[BehindtheShadow]

^^
I'm from Durban SA and it's the best IMHO

 

[ShroomySatori]

I just go for the herb that looks like the nicest grow to me. Sometimes it is super potent in THC but it doesn't have to be. I like a solid grow, med grade stuff and large fox tailed dank reeking colas.
I definitely get a wide variety of effects. Indica and sativa originates as a biological difference. The plants look different and indicas grow well at higher altitudes and are bushier not anywhere near as tall and ideal for indoor growing with shorter flowering times.

 

[w01fg4ng]

^^
I'm from Durban SA and it's the best IMHO

Nice! Often times strains local to their origin come out better in their place of origin

I just go for the herb that looks like the nicest grow to me. Sometimes it is super potent in THC but it doesn't have to be. I like a solid grow, med grade stuff and large fox tailed dank reeking colas.
I definitely get a wide variety of effects. Indica and sativa originates as a biological difference. The plants look different and indicas grow well at higher altitudes and are bushier not anywhere near as tall and ideal for indoor growing with shorter flowering times.

The med grade clones are the same as the recreational ones for the most part. Literally, they sell the exact same plant/cuttings to medical patients as they do to the recreational sells.

Medical patients generally do have a bigger selection of clones to choose from however.

 

[Volsam]

IMO Sativas and Indicas are more of a growers terms, so I'm with you OP on that illiteracy bullshit they feed us at dispensaries, although some people working there are smart enough to know it.

I agree that there are few strains (golden goat and chemdawg #4 come to mind as prominent heady sativas and northern lights and blue dream for indicas) that give you "as advertised" high but generally it's impossible to say, plus to find a very clean strain is hard as plants mutate easily unless carefully bred.

I also personally go for the best looking buds - fresh, smelly, covered in trichomes - sticky icky stuff! %)

 

[ShroomySatori]

Nice! Often times strains local to their origin come out better in their place of origin


The med grade clones are the same as the recreational ones for the most part. Literally, they sell the exact same plant/cuttings to medical patients as they do to the recreational sells.

Medical patients generally do have a bigger selection of clones to choose from however.

Hey this is of interest to me, I don't think we are in the same country. I can grow my own plants legally and a lot of them. I can also go to illegal dispensaries but I don't because their weed is often not grown right.

Compared to MMJ here, I get THC counts to one significant digit and terpene profiles. The weed is phenomenal and feels healthy. It has also been tested for mold and pesticides and stuff, and I find a lot of dense nugs from those places disgusting and moldy. The good stuff is overpriced, but there is no information on THC content or anything at all. I have seen different strains labelled the same. It is not yet legal recreationally here, and by then I will just be growing my own. So I am really happy that I got a prescription. Ironically I didn't bring up weed and it was just after I had quit opiates for good (at least I tell myself this...) but now I can get the best shit! It's a bit of a hassle everything with the government is but the weed is fucking FIRE.

 

[ShroomySatori]

I also personally go for the best looking buds - fresh, smelly, covered in trichomes - sticky icky stuff! %)

Right? Do people not know how to inspect weed these days? All it takes is a wiff of the jar and I can rule out half the weed or more from mold or nasty scent.

I got the sticky icky right now! It is caked. It is so damn potent too, noticeably much more potent. The sticky stuff is often very dank, especially when it reeks of nice terpenes. But yeah I've been smoking like .1 and it feels more like .2 or .3 I love getting herb like that. Just gotta watch tolerance she's a bitch! Budtenders annoy me a lot sometimes they don't know what the fuck they are talking about around here unless they are professional cannabis consultants. The illegal dispensaries are run by criminals who are into dealing other drugs too. They are fucking assholes (they get raided all the time by police, and it is because there is a lot of violence with people breaking into unregulated shops full of drug proceeds) and I hated dealing with them while waiting for my prescription. Like seriously fuck off and wait for it to be legal, it's a hustle. The owners don't even smoke bud it's a sacred plant turned cash crop. They also think they know shit about weed, but they didn't even know the name of the real medical cannabis program here. Fools and not just that but career criminals and I'm just not down with that fucking garbage even if its moldy weed and trash shatter they are getting rich off.

The real medical weed is unbelievable quality though last super silver haze couldn't believe my eyes it's so good. I don't know about the recreational market in the states I assume they have regulations and it isn't essentially open market drug dealing and crime that is absolutely associated with violence. They will take out the competition and shit like that or just walk in hold up a weapon and run. Real intelligent way they are legalizing weed here. Everyone already had pot dealers.

 

[w01fg4ng]

I hadn't realized you were in another country Shroomi. I'll try to clarify a couple things.

The recreational market does have proper regulation here for the most part and it has created a standard for testing cannabis that has changed how the medical market is run as well. This is because the legal market forced ALL sales of cannabis (medical or not) to require proper testing. I personally have never got a moldy batch and all of my purchases in the past several years (even the dirt cheap ones) have been phenomenal quality.

MMJ was not as legitimate as it is now in the states and that is a direct cause of recreational/legal cannabis. The states that currently have MMJ but do not have recreational have more (lack of) regulation problems than the states with recreational. We still have some work to do on the rest of the nation, however it doesn't sound as bad as some of the places you have seen.

I hope your situation gets better. It sounds like you have some fire right now at least


Related note, I still use my sight, smell or name technique but it has evolved some with the use of specific THC/CBD/Terp content information found on the labels.

 

[ShroomySatori]

Do you know how the testing is done? I wonder how it works.

That sounds great, how does it vary between medical and recreational?

Thanks, and I have a wonderful creative high going on at the moment. The trichomes are beautiful on this herb you know like it would make crazy hash I bet. Trippy weed. I wonder if anyone has studied THCV yet. I am doing okay and compared to the turn of the new year, excellent.

I found 13% to be really strong weed, might have been the strain but it blew me away. They had 20% ones but I don't want my tolerance too high. Might try a strain with lots of terpinolene in its profile.

I like to have a small flashlight when inspecting weed too. Thanks for then info! It is chaos here recreationally but medically I am getting the chronic and can't complain.

 

[w01fg4ng]

I am familiar with the basics of the testing, and will explain how it works. Some history knowledge is helpful to understand before I get into it.

Here in Colorado (and other legal states as well), the testing process is exactly the same for medical as it is recreational. It wasn't always this way. The medical community did not have required testing or licensing at one point in time (and still don't in some states). So when I had my medical card back in 2010, the weed I purchased from the dispensary could have been from Mexico attached with blood money, mold, pesticides and or disease and no one would have cared. It simply wasn't legitimate.

Enter legal weed 2012. Regulations begin to form. These regulations included having licenses with proper facilities so you know it's not coming from Mexico as well as testing for not only THC/CBD content but for harmful things such as mold and pesticides.

The actual testing process varies slightly from state to state but the concept is the same. The people who work in the testing facilities aren't the kind of people the OP is complaining about. These testers are making close to 6 figures $$. Basic testers can make a lot of money because it's not an easy job and it shouldn't be given to just anyone. You need to have a strong education AND experience in chemistry. A cannabis tester is hired by one of many testing facilities (no monopoly, no corruption). These facilities then provide a required service to the licenced people running their dispensary/store. This service includes testing the cannabis for all potential issues such as different types of mold and/or pesticides present and how much is actually present. The testing process takes about one week per "batch." A single batch of shatter (for example) might be close to 1000 grams.

 

[The Network]

I've been wondering a lot about testing. My main thing is I'm wondering how they make sure they have an accurate average THC/CBD content. Do they take a bunch of chunks of bud all the way down to the stem (since concentrations probably vary from the stem all the way out), from several different plants in the batch? I've mainly been wondering how accurate it is because I've had a few 15%s that hit much harder than 30%s for example... if they're very accurate and use good averaging techniques it'd be even more interesting because that would mean that possibly terpenes can amplify the apparent potency by 2x.

 

[w01fg4ng]

Testing procedures have evolved and changed over the years and will continue to do so as we continue to find any new issues that need to be addressed or new ways to test them.

Different samples are taken from different areas of the grow/batch. I'm sure a lot of the chosen buds are mostly random, but I'm also sure strategy is put into place whenever it's possible.

When it comes to consistency and accuracy across the whole batch, flower is more difficult to test than concentrates. Concentrates are more consistence from one spot to the next, where as flower isn't and has the inherent problem of having variances from one bud to the next. Unfortunately this does mean that a lot of flower labels have some inaccuracies to them. The labels here in Colorado are clear about these inaccuracies however.

I suspect concentrate potency to be within 2% accuracy and flower potency to be within 8%. This is from personal experience with over 1000 different batches I have been exposed to.

The label required in Colorado must state a 15% variance on potency for all cannabis products. This is just a technical number for the very worst possible situation and does not apply to all situations. As I said, I believe flower has the greatest potential for error when it comes to consistency and would be the only product to reach those kinds of inaccuracies as far as I can tell.

 

[The Network]

So it's stupid to pay a really high price for weed that's supposedly 30% THC while ignoring much more reasonably priced "20%" weed... I suspected that on some level but I didn't know to what extent until now. Interesting. Also means don't discount lower potencies like 15% I suppose.

 

[w01fg4ng]

Yes, I agree.

The only other way to put damage control on that sort of thing is to have a general knowledge of the strain itself. For example, Charlotte's Web is a CBD strain with extremely low THC levels. Knowing this gives you the advantage that it's not going to accidentally have an extra 15% of THC.

 

[ADHDMY4SS]

Definitely not just a sales pitch. However, many many times what people say it is is indeed the opposite. Growers lie who sell it to vendors who lie who sell it to shops or your local dealer who lies and lies and lies some more. Strain names? Forget about it. Rarely are you smoking what you think you're smoking.

Indica and Sativa have very different highs. Generally Sativas are the more creative, energetic high where as the Indicas are the more couch-lock, sedating highs. Both cause equal munchies in all my experience. For some people, they react completely opposite. Everyone is different.

Oh and THC percentages, unless you are getting your product from a state-regulated dispensary whether medical or recreational are the biggest bullshit of all.

Happy toking

 

[The Network]

Definitely not just a sales pitch. However, many many times what people say it is is indeed the opposite. Growers lie who sell it to vendors who lie who sell it to shops or your local dealer who lies and lies and lies some more. Strain names? Forget about it. Rarely are you smoking what you think you're smoking.

Indica and Sativa have very different highs. Generally Sativas are the more creative, energetic high where as the Indicas are the more couch-lock, sedating highs. Both cause equal munchies in all my experience. For some people, they react completely opposite. Everyone is different.

Oh and THC percentages, unless you are getting your product from a state-regulated dispensary whether medical or recreational are the biggest bullshit of all.

Happy toking

Yeah just because you read up strain x can have "up to 28% THC" doesn't mean the shit you got is even 15%.

 

[simco]

going back to the OP, I smoke/vape a lot of weed daily and I feel that there are indicas that live up to the indica reputation, and there are sativas that live up to their rep. But the huge majority of strains (even pure indicas or sativas) fall somewhere in the middle. in other words, if you really want a body high and couch lock, finding the right indica is probably your best bet. And if you want that soaring, airy high, the right sativa is probably best. but outside of those extremes, most experiential variables are hard to predict based on a strain's indica/sativa ratio.