Guest Feature: The Myth of Indica and Sativa

by Travis C | Nov 14, 2018 | Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Growing, Science & Technology

There is a commonly held belief that Indicas are short, stout, broad leaf plants that are physically sedating or relaxing and Sativas are tall, narrow leaf plants that are invigorating and uplifting when ingested.

There is actually no truth to this belief, but it continues to be perpetuated online and in dispensaries throughout the world. The reality is that the myriad of cultivars that we smoke/ingest are all Indica.

Indica and Sativa Origins

After years of rigorous research from botanists and ethnobotanists, there are still different theories regarding the evolution of cannabis taxonomy, but what is widely accepted by most is that C. indica is the vast majority of biotypes in North America and that C. sativa includes only European hemp.

In Robert C. Clarke and Mark Merlin, PhD’s comprehensive text, Cannabis Evolution & Ethnobotany, they discuss the history of cannabis biotypes from several different perspectives, the most plausible being from Karl Hillig, PhD. You can find these biotypes in the table below:

CANNABIS BIOTYPES ACCORDING TO HILLIG (2005)

Acronym & Biotype	Binomial	Early Range	Uses
PA- Putative Ancestor	C. ruderalis	Northern Central Asia	Possible- seed and crude fiber
PHA- Putative Hemp Ancestor	Unrecognized or Extinct	Balkan peninsula Caucasus Mtns	Possible- seed and crude fiber
NLHA- Narrow leaf Hemp Ancestor	C. sativa ssp. spontanea	Eastern Europe Central Asia	Seed and crude fiber
NLH- Narrow leaf Hemp	C. sativa ssp. sativa	Europe	Seed and textile fiber
PDA- Putative Drug Ancestor	Unrecognized or Extinct	Hengduan Mtns Yungui Plateau	Possible ritual and medicinal
BLHA- Broad leaf Hemp Ancestor	Unrecognized or Extinct	Eastern Asia	Possible seed and crude fiber
BLH- Broad leaf Hemp	C. indica ssp. chinensis	China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia	Seed and textile fiber
NLDA- Narrow leaf Drug Ancestor	C. indica ssp. kafiristanica	Himalayan Foothills- Kashmir to Myanmar	Euphoria- hashish, “marijuana”
NLD- Narrow leaf Drug	C. indica ssp. indica	South & SE Asia, Middle East	Euphoria- hashish, “marijuana,” fiber, seed
BLD- Broad leaf Drug	C. indica ssp. afghanica	N. Afghanistan, Pakistan	Euphoria- hashish

As you can see from the chart, the only ancestor of C. sativa hails from the Balkan Peninsula. The ancestor of C. sativa ssp. spontanea is a Narrow Leaf Hemp Ancestory from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the modern C. sativa spp. sativa is Narrow Leaf Hemp from Europe. Both the ancestor and the modern C. sativa have been used as seed and crude fiber, not for intoxication/euphoria, as in the case of the Narrow Leaf and Broad Leaf Drug C. indica.

I know this news is hard to accept for some, but we already know that it is the cannabinoids (THC, CBD, CBC, etc) and the terpenoids (myrcene, pinene, limonene, etc) that elicit the therapeutic, invigorating, sedating, and other affects that are associated with ingestion of cannabis. Since we know that it is the cannabinoids and terpenoids that produce the favorable (and sometimes adverse) effects, why do we keep saying it is because it is an Indica or Sativa?

It is time we stopped disseminating misinformation and educate ourselves about the true properties of cannabis (or what we know so far). Remember there are well over 100 cannabinoids and we have identified only a handful. We still have a very long way to go before we truly understand what contributes to the therapeutic and euphoric effects of cannabis.