Indica vs sativa: 89,923 lab tests, no chemical divide

The story begins with a book. Botanists date modern plant naming from the publication of Linnaeus's Species Plantarum in 1753, and Cannabis sativa goes back to it. The specimen Linnaeus used was a European fibre plant with no intoxicating effect. Lamarck described a second species from India in 1785, Cannabis indica: fairly tall plants with loose branching and narrow leaflets.

Sellers today do the opposite: a squat, broad-leaved plant is sold as "indica" and a tall, narrow-leaved one as "sativa". In a 2018 review, botanist John McPartland puts the mismatch in a single sentence: trade "Sativa" is really indica, "Indica" is afghanica, and "Ruderalis" is usually sativa. He recognises one species, Cannabis sativa, with two subspecies, sativa and indica.

The law also calls authorised hemp Cannabis sativa L., whatever the variety looks like. Under the EU common agricultural policy regulation, aid goes only to varieties whose THC content does not exceed 0.3% (Article 4). The European Commission listed 116 hemp varieties in the common catalogue in 2024, and France produces more than 60% of the EU's hemp. Our article on the European variety catalogue explains how to read it.

Three studies have checked the label of cannabis sold in North America against its contents, and their results agree.

Published in PLOS ONE in 2015, the study by Sawler and colleagues makes two further points. In 6 comparisons out of 17, samples sharing a variety name were genetically closer to samples with another name. Hemp also came out closer to "indica"-type cannabis than to the "sativa" type.

Watts's team, in Nature Plants, analysed more than 100 samples in 2021, looking at terpenes, cannabinoids and over 100,000 genetic markers together. Across the genome, samples labelled "sativa" and "indica" could not be told apart. Some terpene synthase genes did show an association with the label.

The largest study, by Smith and colleagues, published in 2022 in PLOS ONE, covers 89,923 samples tested in six US states. Their terpene profiles group into three families: β-caryophyllene and limonene, myrcene and pinene, terpinolene and myrcene. Indica, sativa and hybrid labels turn up in all three families, with no clear separation. According to the authors, marketing that sells indica as sedating and sativa as energising has no basis. Our article on hemp terpenes describes these molecules.

The idea comes from user testimony. One often-cited source is an online survey published in 2014 of 95 medical cannabis users in the United States. Respondents associated indica with sleep and sedation and sativa with euphoria and energy. The authors admit the limits: participants were not randomly selected, and some questions drew very few answers. More decisive still, no lab checked the labels. Nobody knew what the product really contained, and the expectation a label creates can be enough to steer an answer.

Ethan Russo, a neurologist specialising in cannabinoids, put it more bluntly. In an interview published in 2016, he says a plant's height, branching or leaves cannot tell you its composition. He advises abandoning both words and testing cannabinoids and terpenes instead. We found no blinded clinical trial comparing "sativa" and "indica" products of known composition.

With a CBD flower, the question matters even less. CBD lacks the psychoactive effect of THC, and a compliant product holds 0.30% Δ⁹-THC at most. This point is covered in the article does CBD get you high?.

Researchers sort cannabis by chemotype, its cannabinoid profile, and a 2022 review in Plants describes five of them.

CBD flowers sold in France are chemotype III, or IV for varieties rich in CBG. Plants of opposite shapes can share a chemotype, and identical-looking plants can differ in theirs. A certificate of analysis measures the chemotype, which the word sativa or indica cannot tell you.

When a product page says indica or sativa, it is stating a genetic origin, sometimes loosely. The certificate of analysis tells you more through five items:

1. The batch number, the same on the bag and on the analysis.
2. The CBD content, as a percentage by mass.
3. The Δ⁹-THC, which has to be 0.30% or below.
4. The terpene profile, if the lab measured it: myrcene, limonene, β-caryophyllene.
5. The absence of HHC, H4CBD and THCP, all classified as narcotics.

Each variety's dominant terpene appears on the CBD flower pages. The article on the quality of a smokable CBD sets out our selection criteria.