^^^This is something I've thought about a lot. When I was smoking back in the 70's we never differentiated the type of high we got. It was that you smoked pot and you got high (or stoned or bjamboed....whatever you want to call it), lol! All the terms were interchangeable back then....they all meant the same thing.
Since the days of medical marijuana recommendations, dispensaries attempted to separate and differentiate the strains according to whatever the medical-user's symptoms were.
"Oh, you have a lot of tension and can't sleep? Well then, an Indica will help with that." Or,
"You like getting high but you don't want that 'heavy' kind of high? Well then, try a Sativa because they lift you up." But, like I said earlier, most of the smoke we were getting back in those days was some kind of Mexican/South American landrace
Sativa....and we got high, stoned, etc. as fuck. I don't ever recall wanting to go jet skiing after smoking a joint of that old school, landrace weed! Never! So how could those old Sativas knock us out when they were 'supposed to' lift us up? The answer...
...the answer is that the market/industry -whatever you want to call it, created the differentiations and applications of thousands of strains to the thousands of symptoms that are common to almost everyone -sore back, anxiety, trouble sleeping, lack of creative thinking, relaxation....and so on. All of a sudden, the market said, "Hey! We have specific strains for each one of those things!"
So the idea spread that every one of the thousands and thousands of strains out there, could potentially have it's own, unique application for a specific desired effect -(while at the same time having all the same, exact, psychoactive components as the next)...The only real way to know which one was best for you would be to keep coming back and trying them all until you happened onto the perfect matchup....which could take forever. And, in that process of strain testing, people fall into the trap of going along with the hype of the marketplace.
Then THC/cannabinoid testing came about, And suddenly, the game switched to focus on producing the strains that tested highest for THC or the strains that had high CBD levels. And I've tried many of those super-high (30%+) strains....which left me nowhere near as high as they
should have....and in fact, weren't really even that pleasant or enjoyable at all. The high CBD strains didn't do much, either.
By deduction, there must be something that's still missing. What else could it be besides the flavonoids and terpenes? Those are the things that I keep noticing is missing from about almost everything on the market today -no smell and no flavor. What then differentiates the strains? Hmmmmm....I'm not great at math, but I can put two and two together.
What's so hard about breeding strains for more smell and flavor? The answer is that most of the stinky and tasty traits were bred out of the landrace strains to keep the grow ops stealthy....and as a result, now there are few (if any) real landrace genetics -indoors or outdoors, left. It's all just....gone....or hiding out in super-secret places -which is what I'd prefer to believe...but I doubt it because, IF someone had the real deal, then they could literally take over the market. There is so much bland stuff out there, now -really, really well-grown -BEAUTIFULLY grown.....but bland, bland, bland. And saying that probably doesn't even make sense to a lot of younger folks because they have all this beautiful -looking stuff to choose from that smells a little bit like grapes if you smash your face into a ripe bud....or smells a little bit pine tree-like, etc. Yet they don't have any idea of what some of that old school landrace marijuana tasted like...or smelled like from across the room when someone walked in with a baggy of the skunk in their pocket.
It could always be worse....but I just wish I had the GALLON-SIZE jar of landrace seeds that I used to scrape out onto a double-album cover. If I did, then I'd be two things: 1. Rich and: 2. High.
Peace!
