Maybe it takes some time to get to know the different strains and how they feel. I mean, I cannot tell the difference between different wines because I am not experienced in that, I can mostly say that this is shit wine and this is good wine.

But with this plant, the different strains definitely have different effects, and if you compare a strong indica vs sativa, the effects are very clearly different.

I mean, it is a plant that affects your mind and body, if you spend a lot of time with that you get to recognize the definite differences. The way the grower also handles the plants seem to have a difference, so it can be very sensitive if you have sensitivy for that kind of things.

Personally I agree on that the race to increase THC levels in the plants is not the best way, I mean I would be more happy if there was a race to create balanced strains, instead of trying to maximize the "blast you in the face" high THC buds. Like you said, sipping on good balanced strains is a much better experience at least for me, than just getting blasted to the moon with these modern strains coming near 20-30% THC content and almost no CBD.

I would guess that all this focus on strains speaks to the extent to the extent to which pot is just never going to be like wine.

With wine and beer, the ingredient varieties do impact flavor, but, realistically, they have nothing to do with the price a product can command. There's $3/bottle Cab and there's $300/bottle Cab. The difference in price is ostensibly down to the amount of skill that goes into the production of the final product, not just the grape variety.

I have a hard time imagining that can happen to a significant extent with cannabis. I'm guessing there's not as much room for a discerning palate to pick up on and enjoy subtle terroir distinctions in a product that you consume by setting on fire and inhaling the smoke. Nor do I see as much room for artisanal skill to appear in the final product. Making wine involves careful balancing of a variety of factors in order to fine-tune how an active biological process alters the characteristics of the final product. Cannabis? I'm pretty sure the process ranges from drying it and packaging it up in plastic baggies, to tincturing it and mixing the result into candy. I just don't see as much room for fine craftsmanship in either option.

Not saying there's none at all. Just that I have a hard time seeing how there's enough of it to support much of a very high-end luxury niche to the industry the way you see with booze.

Nor do I see it working out like tobacco where you at least have a (small) minority of cigar and pipe smokers who are primarily interested in the flavor of the smoke. But it sounds like cannabis is now so strong that it's difficult to consume any amount of it without becoming intoxicated. Which I would assume makes the development of a proper connoisseur culture around it about as likely as a connoisseur culture around 90% grain alcohol would be.

Well, who knows, the legalization around the world is still relatively new, and mass markets are being tested, so when for example more of Europe legalizes cannabis also, different and more varied markets are going to come alive.

But for example medicinal cannabis like Bedrocan was developed to be a very clear and non-intoxicating strain, and you can definitely feel the difference in that vs homegrown varieties, so there is definitely an art there that is still to be explored by the big markets.

Who knows, wine and beer industries have existed for so much longer. With cannabis I understand it's the same thing, there is a lot of fine tuning in how you give nutrients, light and the environment, it affects both the taste and the effect. Also indoors vs outdoors has a different effect, so for sure there are a lot of variables in play that can be tuned.

My hope is that slowly the mass legalization will be going towards in giving the people the strains they need, some need more relaxing, some more activating, some more pain nulling and so on.

Also, smoking is not the best way anymore, vaporizing or eating is the most efficient way. High quality vaporizers the effect is much more medicinal, than smoking it, same way is when you eat it.

Maybe you have not tested a high quality vaporizer? with those the flavor and effect is much more clear, the smoking gives you an intoxicating effect from jus t inhaling smoke into your lungs. With a high quality medical cannabis and vaporizer, the effect is very medicinal, it can be almost non-intoxicating especially when used for a longer period of time.

Too bad this stuff is still illegal in many places. The illegality has most probably been driving the need to pack a lot of punch into as small amount of weed as possible, hopefully the legalization process will lead into more milder variants and strains being developed.

I've smoked almost daily for over 30 years. Can't tell any difference whatsoever between sativa and indica. It's routine now going into one of these fancy weed places and having them ask me this first and I have to find some way to politely say 'yeah, they're no different for me, sorry'. The junk science around weed is so cringey.

Well, have you considered that the daily smoking has made you numb to the effects, or your tolerance is so high that you don't anymore feel the effect ?

I get more number to the effect also while tolerance develops, I can only imagine what happens after 30 years. I definitely don't use weed daily, it would kill my productivity completely, but when I do after long periods of being sober, the sativa vs indica difference is so clear that seems pretty silly to even discuss about this.

Yeah, I actually find it pretty unbelievable that even in legal states where the business has been around over a decade, you still get these pseudoscientific claims about potency or effects. I wonder when the industry will "grow up" (no pun intended).

> I personally have never even been able to detect a real difference between sativa and indica, let alone individual strains

This is interesting to hear because I have the opposite experience. I used to have really bad anxiety and weed was (and still can be) a trigger for it. I took a few years off weed and only starting trying it again since legalization in Canada (and now Thailand). I have definitely noticed that I feel best on something that is under 20% THC, with at least 1% CBD. I also am doing more experimenting with different terpenes and am pretty sure that also has an effect on how it makes me feel - limonene for example seems to be the best for getting the "euphoric" high. This makes sense as there is some research to indicate that terpenes from other plants (such as lavender) can have a positive impact on anxiety.

In terms of indica vs sativa however, I do think the distinction is largely overblown (from what I have read) and those are usually just proxies for the cannabinoid ratios (with sativa usually being higher THC etc and indica higher CBD etc.)

So from my experience and from what we have seen with coffee and beer I can agree that we will see commercialization first (like the Starbucks and Molson/Coors era) but I think that as weed becomes more normalized and more people get a feel for the differences in strains, preparations etc. we will see a shift back towards more "craft"/small farm interests like we have seen with beer and coffee in the last few years.

It's a great point that the cannabinoid ratio has a dramatic effect on the high. Ever since high CBD:THC oils became available in cartridge form, I personally switched ratios in the 15-25:1 range. This is like 2% THC, but likewise I find I get all the benefits of smoking "regular" weed or high potency carts without feeling uncomfortably high or anxious at any point. You can "sip" it. I think finding your preference along this product dimension will definitely become more of a thing, because the difference is real. And while I don't have a favorite terpene or anything, more differentiation there feels plausible too.

That said, I still think the big difference between coffee/wine and weed is that finding your optimal drug dosage is a fundamentally different human experience to tasting food and drink. Imagine if all alcohol tasted the same and the only differentiator was the exact type of drunk it made you. It's hard to imagine the same sort of culture emerging, where people are flying to foreign countries to taste wine or lining up outside their favorite brewery for new beers. Flavors are subjective, same as drug effects, but they are also sharable. You can hand someone a glass of wine and ask what they think. You can't hand someone your sense of reality and ask them if they are tripping out in the same way.

Tobacco really is a great comparison, eg. cigarettes likewise claim to compete on taste/subjective factors like "smoothness", but in reality nobody is hunting down 2012 Vintage Marlboros. Maybe an analogy to the high end cigar market could emerge? A product variant intended for less habitual, slower but more refined enjoyment?

I haven't ventured much into the high CBD territory yet. I'm going to see what I can find when I am back in Thailand in March but might have to wait to be back in Canada as Thailand medicinal is still very early days.

> and those are usually just proxies for the cannabinoid ratios (with sativa usually being higher THC etc and indica higher CBD etc.)

As a medical user in the UK, I don't believe this to be the case - I believe these terms are more like proxies for the terpenes than the cannabinoids; you can have two strains with the same cannabinoid content, yet they can have completely different effects.

> I believe these terms are more like proxies for the terpenes than the cannabinoids

Do you have some info on what terps tend to be associated with sativa and which with indica? This is an interesting point if there seems to be a pattern!

Unfortunately in the UK medical market, clinics/dispensaries/growers don't have to provide patients with terpene profiles. Still, some CoAs (Certificates of Analysis) are made available, and the rest you can sometimes figure out from the likes of Leafly.

For me, I'd say terpinolene, limonene and pinene tend to be dominant in the stimulating sativas I've had, where caryophyllene and myrcene take their place in indicas.

But it's no simple challenge, as non-dominant terpenes exert an influence too - and there can be dozens of them. And just to make it an even harder problem, it also seems to vary to some degree from person to person.

I seem to recall seeing Leafly's data in Kaggle, might be worth a look if you want to dig in!

I don’t want to come off as pedantic disagreeing here but as a degenerate pot smoker for the last 15 years I definitely can tell the difference. I actually never understood wine tasting and it’s subtleties until I started picking up on the same notes in my herbs.

Sure, back in the day lots of stuff was made up. But now I genuinely do get a different taste and high depending on the strain and I can usually tell the difference between certain kinds. Also, for very popular buds like Sour D I can ID by the smell alone. In the end it is just different terps, I know. And while I prefer Indica (“in-da-couch”) I do recognize some of the different effects could simply be psychological and not physical. Alas, I am big fan of medical grade sensi and the sincere peace it brings to my life (it is a boon for treating seizures). Anywho, just my two cents, have a good one!

You can "sip" on a vape regardless of produce potency. Set the temperature to 185°C and suck gently, turning it off as soon as you taste it. Then vibe for a moment and get a feel. Increase temp by +2 degrees and repeat. This precisely avoids getting fucked up from one puff, and allows you to enjoy the gradual intoxication.

CBD, the calming, antipsychotic compound vaporizes at a lower temperature than THC, the compound that gets you high. At 185°C you're getting mostly a bodily soothe, while 230°C has you hitting the deck and spaceing out.