Sativa vs. Indica - Understanding Differences in Cannabis
Are you smoking indica or sativa? Here's why it matters and what the difference between the two is.
The Uses of Cannabis
Cannabis. Weed. Ganja. Charas. Hash. Pot. Marijuana. The devil's lettuce. Jazz Cabbage. It's known by many names and consumed in many forms, but the one thing most people can safely agree on is that weed is great and has a multitude of uses.
Parts of the cannabis plant are used to create medicines (CBD oil), hemp-based cloth, and to treat a range of disorders. In India, recreational use of cannabis is strictly prohibited under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. But there are exceptions to this, which we'll cover in this story.
Different strains of cannabis are used to create different medicines and products. The three species of cannabis are Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica, or Cannabis Ruderalis.
These are further categorised into thousands of strains.
Today we'll explain what you should know about these, and we'll also dispel some common myths and misconceptions around the different types of marijuana.
The History of Indica and Sativa
In 1753, botanist Carl Linnaeus, in his book Species Plantarum, which documented every known species of plant at the time, identified marijuana as JUST one species of plant - Cannabis sativa. There were no two strains; it was just the one type, according to him.
Cannabis indica was discovered by biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1785, when he was given marijuana specimens from India.
Based on physical characteristics like the thickness of the plant's bark, the shape of leaves, and the height of the plant, Lamarck felt that this plant should be categorised differently from Cannabis sativa. Thus, he coined the species Cannabis indica.
"They categorised them into two types back then because hemp was an industrial resource - for fibre and medicine alike. Hemp and cannabis were often used interchangeably. The amount of hemp fibre you'd get from indica and sativa would vary because they're both different sizes. These categories served a purely economic purpose back then," Raghav Priyadarshi, CEO, Savikalpa Sciences.
At some point in the history of marijuana's use, this classification, which was based on appearance and economics, extended to also mean different effects that each strain had.
Check out a vast variety of plant-based medicine here.
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Key Takeaways
- - Cannabis has multiple applications, ranging from medicine and wellness to industrial uses like hemp-based textiles.
- - The plant is broadly classified into Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis, each encompassing thousands of strains.
- - The original indica sativa classification was based on plant structure, size, and economic utility not on psychoactive effects.
- - Cannabis indica was identified later than Cannabis sativa, using physical traits such as leaf shape and plant height.
- - The idea that indica and sativa produce distinctly different effects developed much later and is a modern interpretation.
- - Understanding the historical and biological basis of cannabis classification helps clarify common myths around strain effects.