Purple Haze: history of a strain, from Hendrix to CBD flower

The artist's official website sets the dates. The basic track was recorded in four hours on 11 January 1967, at the DeLane Lea studios in London, and the single came out in the United Kingdom on 17 March that year.

The lyrics have drawn far more comment. According to NPR, Hendrix said he got the idea in a dream, after reading a science-fiction novel (NPR, 2000). He himself pointed to a line in the second verse, about a girl who had supposedly put a spell on him.

The novel most often cited is Night of Light, by Philip José Farmer, published in 1966: on a distant planet, a purple haze disorients the humans (American Songwriter, 2026). According to the same article, Hendrix saw himself walking under the sea in this dream.

Some listeners heard an allusion to drugs in a few lines. The sources consulted report this reading as the listeners' own, and none ties it to a statement by Hendrix.

None of the sources consulted names the breeder of the original Purple Haze. The Leafly page presents this sativa as a presumed descendant of Purple Thai and Haze (Leafly, consulted on 6 October 2026). It also links its popularity to the 1967 song.

According to another hypothesis, the strain would come directly from Haze. Quoted by Leafly, the cultivation specialist Dan Vinkovetsky describes four original phenotypes at the Haze Brothers, nicknamed Gold, Silver, Blue and Purple (Leafly, 2025). The name would then refer to a purple expression of Haze, with no Purple Thai input.

The dates support a name borrowed from the song. The same article places the Haze Brothers' work on Haze in Santa Cruz, California, in the early 1970s. A Purple Haze from this line would therefore be more recent than the 1967 title, from which it would most likely take its name.

For the full genealogy of the family, from Santa Cruz to the cultivars awarded in Amsterdam, see our overview of Haze strains. The series also devotes an article to two of its descendants, Lemon Haze and Amnesia Haze.

The purple comes from anthocyanins, pigments found in many fruits and flowers. In 2021, Italian researchers analysed six cannabis genotypes grown outdoors near Bologna. In the pigmented tissues, vegetative and floral alike, the main anthocyanin was cyanidin-3-rutinoside, or keracyanin (Bassolino et al., 2023).

They describe a synthesis pathway controlled by transcription factors, including those of the MYB family. So it is genetics, first of all, that decides whether a plant can produce these pigments.

Temperature then acts on the quantity accumulated. In a study published in 2025, a CBD-dominant cultivar, chosen for its purple pigmentation, flowered for 30 days under five constant temperatures. Anthocyanins peaked at 8 °C and at 15 °C, and fell at 0.5 °C as at 22 °C (Kim et al., 2025).

The dry weight of the inflorescences and the total CBD content, on the other hand, rose with temperature (from 3.4% to 5.2% for CBD). Since colour and CBD do not follow the same curve, the authors conclude that the regulation pathways are distinct.

Depending on the season or the growing method, two batches of the same genetics can therefore look different. A green Purple Haze is not a counterfeit for all that: its name does not commit it to a colour, which the certificate does not measure anyway. Other lines also take their name from this shade, such as Purple Runtz, whose name derives from Runtz.

Leafly describes sweet and earthy flavours, lifted by berries and spices. On the terpene side, the page puts myrcene first, then caryophyllene and limonene. The first is associated with herbaceous notes, the second with pepper and the third with citrus.

These pointers apply to the original Purple Haze, a THC cannabis strain. A hemp flower sold under this name has a profile that depends on selection and cultivation, and that changes again during storage. The real profile of a batch appears on its terpene analysis; our article on hemp terpenes covers this point in detail.

Under French law, the registered variety is what counts, whatever the trade name. The order of 30 December 2021 restricts the cultivation and commercial use of hemp to varieties in the EU common catalogue or the official French catalogue. Their Δ⁹-THC content must not exceed 0.30% (Légifrance, 2021).

This text also banned the sale of raw flowers, a ban that the Conseil d'État annulled on 29 December 2022 (Conseil d'État, 2022). A Purple Haze CBD is therefore a hemp flower whose name refers to a lineage and a scent. It is compliant or not depending on the variety grown and the content measured on the batch.

The original Purple Haze, a THC cannabis strain, remains banned from sale in France. Taken up on a CBD flower, its name passes on neither its composition nor its status. It announces a scent, which the analysis will confirm or not.

Colour does not appear on a certificate of analysis, because anthocyanins are not among the parameters usually tested on a CBD flower. Read the following lines instead, in this order:

1. The batch: the number printed on the bag must appear on the certificate, along with an analysis date.
2. Δ⁹-THC: its line must not exceed 0.30%. THCA, the acid form that heat converts into THC, has its own line (THCA explained).
3. CBD and CBDA: the content stated on the label must be that of the certificate for the same batch.
4. Terpenes: with dominant myrcene, the batch comes close to the profile described for Purple Haze. Another terpene at the top signals a gap, without making the batch non-compliant.
5. Undeclared substances: the certificate must make it possible to rule out HHC, classified as a narcotic in France (see the timeline of the HHC classification).

Three addictovigilance centres, with the support of MILDECA, analysed 223 samples of CBD products bought in 2022 and 2023. Of these, 87% were below 0.3% Δ⁹-THC. In 6% of the samples, the study found neocannabinoids missing from the label, such as HHC or Δ8-THC (MILDECA, 2023).

At Phytogrammes, the Purple Haze CBD page gives a reference cannabinoid profile, in which Δ⁹-THC and THCA have separate lines. As of 18 October 2026, no laboratory certificate is published there. For the other flowers, see the CBD Laboratory page.

Worked example You have two flowers in front of you, both sold under the name Purple Haze. One has purple tints, the other is green with orange pistils, and their appearance is not enough to tell them apart. Take the certificate of each batch, compare the CBD and Δ⁹-THC lines, then the dominant terpene.