I gather THC:CBD:CBN ratios can result in slightly differing highs, but none of that is linked in any consistent or reliable way to strains, right? It's my understanding those factors are far more linked to how the cannabis was grown and cared for than the plant's exact genetics.
And terpenes are not known to be psychoactive, yet a lot of people say they can influence the high to be either more sedating or stimulating. Is that true? My gut feeling is that's also bullshit and they only effect the smell and taste. I could see an argument that they indirectly influence the high in the same way your set and setting influences it, but certainly not in any consistent, reliable way, and especially not between different people.
My experience with weed, regardless of the terpene profile, strain, or indica/sativa has been that it's all basically the same high and there is not a soul on this Earth who could smoke some flower in a blind test and tell you what the strain is or even just if it's an indica or sativa.
Terpenes are definitely psychoactive, there's even a drug called silexan that's just two terpenes and it's as effective for anxiety as benzos. Different strains have very different effects, you just have to consume them in a way that doesn't burn up all the terps. Get a vaporizer.
My sense is that the composition of cannabis does matter, that the effects seem to vary a lot by the individual, and that the people marketing it or even just trying to consistently describe strains and their properties are fairly wrong most of the time. Taken together, this tends to mean people often don't feel the variation in effects they're told they should feel.
Example: I have never had a strain that made me feel energetic and creative. Not once. No matter how hyped the strain is or what the weed sellers say.
the tactile difference is honestly way bigger to me than the actual consumptive experience. some weed is sticky and dank and some is almost fluffy. some of it tastes weirder than other. but they all just kind of get me high.
Yep, that's all it is for me too. High is just high. No noticeable stimulation or creativity or any of the specific things that people say "yeah this is good for XYZ." It's all just weed to me.
That’s largely about setting and mood anyway. Like, drinking tequila when I was 19 meant I was gonna fight someone. Like 20 years later, I drink tequila and relax. It’s not the ethanol that changed, it was me.
Literally meant how the sensation differs. How quickly it comes on, exactly where you feel it, etc
Strains do in fact hit different
All of this is subjective anecdotal experience. We could both be right because of our different brain chemistries, or you could have more scrupulous suppliers than I, or it could be all placebo effect/marketing. There are enough people whose experiences differ that we can’t definitively say which is right. Maybe Brandon’s bullshit rescheduling will enable the research to be done, but there isn’t a body of quality research to back either conclusion.
Also, the human body absorbs alcohol at basically a constant rate, regardless of type (although carbonation can increase absorption rate). Differences in “how fast I feel drunk” are largely due to what else your digestive system is doing at the time.
I could only consistently identify weed grown by the same people from the same process, and any random weed I could only possibly ID by taste.
There are real differences between strains for myself. Even the effect and often the flavor of the same strain/batch ball vaped vs smoked, vaped at different temps, in one-hitter, extracted/pressed and mixed with a fuel and vaped in a 510 rig, or made into edibles. Sometimes a lot sometimes not much.
There's different structures that metabolize thing and everything's made of some processes' metabolites, so it's entirely conceivable to me that some strains and methods of extraction with different ultimate levels of THCA, THCV, CBD, CBN, etc will interact with people in different ways.
i agree, i smoke all the time and the only real difference i notice is in THC content, with higher THC making me more tired/relaxed. I've never had weed that made me more energetic, weed mostly just makes me feel more in control of my emotions and my response to them and less negatively impacted by anxiety and intrusive thoughts. it makes my inner monologues less self deprecating and more philosophical/existential. it also helps me to avoid executive dysfunction, i can stay focused on stuff i need/want to do longer when im high.
All I know about "medical" marijuana is that you do not want to do it if you have any dissociative trauma in your life. I ended up with a $800 a month addiction and I still have to deal with my cPTSD at 39 and not at a better age like my early 20s. People try to suggest it all the time in the communities I am in and I dislike that it happens. Pot is not a cure-all and sometimes it might add to a person's mental illness and not take away from it.
EDIT: I wanted to circle back and say that I have done every ratio and strain under the sun and they did not change the fact that it's all super addictive. I even managed to abuse the 21:1 CBD:THC stuff they would make. Those just brought my alcoholism out more.
Had too much weed in an edible one time, and I was literally derealizing and depersonalizing for 3 months.
You can tell people beforehand that you have fucked up mental health issues, so you don't want psychedelics, but nobody believes you, and they just keep pushing it
For me I used pot to create a baseline level to my dissociation to desperately try to smooth out the peaks and valleys. It never worked and for almost 19 years I was stoned with various breaks where when I came up for air to ask for help I got told to go back to toking. I think it contributed to me only transitioning at 34.
Jeeeeezus I'm sorry that happened to you. Lotta people IRL are absolutely way too pro-pot. It should be legal and all that but its not a cure all nor is it free of side effects and negative interactions. Like half or more of my friend group are big stoners and while for a bunch of them it keeps them coming together and is a nice group activity or whatever (get stoned and watch basketball or anime or what have you), there's at least like 3-4 of them who 100% have a harmful dependence on it, or have in the past. And I've met a good number of people who it just doesn't agree with, fucks up their mental health, etc. who were all at one point stoners
Hybrids always gave me energy and made me want to do things. Apparently I am weird in this regard, but I used to love to get high before a long workout or when starting a project because the energy and mental boost was crazy.
It’s like 99% marketing. There’s some differences but there has been no scientific rigor about it so it’s all marketing.
from what i know, and have heard from people in the industry, its the differences in terpenes that can really affect how a high feels more than anything else.
Terpenes definitely make a difference, in both flavor and effect. Mycrene, the blue/grape terp, is known to be a pretty good painkiller even without THC. Caryophyllene is really good for antiinflammatory purposes. I've noticed Nerolidol always makes for more of a head high.
For the most part, weed is weed, but certain strains and terps really make a difference. I could definitely pick out Jack Herrer or Northern Lights in a blind test, but most other strains are indistinguishable because they're all hybrids anyways
Indica vs Sativa is most definitely bullshit as everything has been cross bred so much there's really only hybrids outside of actual wild cannabis. So indica being sleepy and sativa being energetic is just stoner mythology at this point.
However as others have pointed out, differences in cannabinoid ratios, terpene profiles, ROA (and temperature if vaping) can definitely result in different highs. Likewise the placebo effect is very real and if you go in expecting a strain to make you sleepy for example then chances are it will.
The biggest difference though that a majority of people will actually be able to tell is THC content honestly. It's quite a new field though and there is a lot of interesting research being done to increase our understanding (e.g. the effects of different terpenes).
man, i don't even know. the dogma of agricultural genetics is [phenotype = genotype + environment], so nutrition/environment play as big a role as genetics, with genetics maybe representing a "potential" and nutrition/environment gatekeeping the potential being reached. and the ideological frame of intellectual property is to consistently hype genetics as the most important thing in the world, because it's more easily "owned" under capitalism.
but down to the actual psychoactive experience/profile of various cultivars, i don't even know. budtender lore reminds me a lot of the patter around sommolier hype. <<Ah, Ouais, Le Grand Cru... hon hon hon.>>, but now we're talking about the metacognitive characterization of altered consciousness instead of pure aesthetics like taste and color, so i am even more dubious of so-called knowers.
i don't even do weed right apparently, so my opinion is fringe trash probably. when i blaze, i do the laundry, the dishes, organize my office, and like mop the house. it doesn't relax me so much as make drudgery seem very novel and engaging, so i put on some music and lay into some task. i used to wake and bake on a farm for all my routine chores. kinda how i want to do my retirement too. most people i know are the opposite, even when we are smoking the same batch. it makes them want to lay down and eat a bunch of cereal or chips while watching Die Hard. i could do that, but it would feel like a waste of the weed.
