Skunk: the story of a cultivar and a hijacked word

Skunk #1 is credited to the Californian collective Sacred Seeds, which is said to have stabilised it in the late 1970s from Afghan, Colombian Gold and Acapulco Gold lines. This account comes from the breeders themselves: none of the sources consulted cites an official register, and their dates do not agree.

The Leafly database writes Sacred Seed Co. and dates its first flowering to the late 1970s. In an interview published by Sensi Seeds in 2023, the breeder known as Sam the Skunkman gives the order of the crosses: an Afghan crossed with a Colombian Gold, then an Acapulco Gold to shorten the flowering of that late-maturing plant.

The aim was consistency, at a time when seeds from the same packet produced plants that differed widely. According to Sam the Skunkman, Skunk #1 was one of 30 hybrids he trialled, kept because its offspring varied little. That stability is what made it a foundation for further breeding.

The accounts still diverge. The Sensi Seeds Skunk #1 product page mentions landraces from Central and South America, Afghanistan and Thailand, for a plant rated 35% sativa and 65% indica; neither the interview nor Leafly names a Thai parent. According to the same interview, Skunk #1 is said to have won the 1988 High Times Cup. According to Sensi Seeds, Sam the Skunkman died on 27 January 2025.

The date when Sam the Skunkman and his seeds reached the Netherlands also changes with the source.

The 2019 Sensi Seeds blog post also cites accounts that date the first cross back to 1969, near San Francisco. None of these dates can be checked from outside. In Europe, "skunk" then became a prefix or suffix: Super Skunk, Lemon Skunk, Skunk Haze. Other families went the same way, as our articles on Haze varieties and OG Kush show.

That vagueness still has consequences today. In 2019, two researchers from the University of Northern Colorado analysed the DNA of 122 samples from 30 strains obtained from 20 dispensaries or donors in three US states. Only 4 of the 30 strains had a consistent genetic profile across all their samples. Leaving out one or two outlying samples brought the count to 11, then 15.

Skunk is no exception: two bags sold under the same name can contain different plants. Five Kush flowers compared batch by batch point to the same thing on the hemp side.

Hemp authorised in Europe follows other rules. It has to come from varieties listed in the common catalogue, which are described and checked, and our article on the European variety catalogue explains how to read it. A CBD flower's trade name, by contrast, is only a marketing name.

Several well-known strains claim a Skunk, most often Skunk #1, among their ancestors: Super Skunk, Shiva Skunk, Cheese, Green Crack, Super Silver Haze and Jack Herer. These lineages are declared by seed companies or strain databases, and none of the sources consulted cites a genetic analysis that confirms them.

This table only records claims. For Sour Diesel, SeedFinder notes that the Skunk used is still debated. A declared parent is not a genotype, as the 2019 study cited above showed.

The word enters British official texts

In July 2007, the UK Home Secretary asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to review how cannabis was classified. The request was aimed at the stronger forms of the drug, "commonly known as skunk". The report published in 2008 divides products into three families: resin, traditional herbal cannabis and sinsemilla, "including skunk". Its glossary defines sinsemilla as the flowering tops of unfertilised female plants, usually grown by intensive indoor methods. Skunk, in the same glossary, is a form of sinsemilla with a characteristic smell.

The report also cites 2005 analyses of 452 samples supplied by five English police forces. The median THC content was 13.98% for sinsemilla, 3.54% for resin and 2.14% for imported herbal cannabis. For CBD, the sinsemilla median stayed below 0.10%.

The European monitoring centre had already warned

Four years earlier, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction had published a report, "An overview of cannabis potency in Europe", which recommended the term "sinsemilla" over "nederwiet" or "skunk". Its author, Leslie King, also found almost worthless a 2004 statement that skunk contained "up to 30 per cent" THC. A maximum given without a low value, a mean or a sample size says nothing. A batch certificate rests on the same principle: a figure is worth only as much as its method.

On average, yes. From 1970 to 2017, the THC content of herbal cannabis rose by about 0.29 percentage points a year, mainly because sinsemilla, the stronger form, took market share from traditional herbal cannabis. Sinsemilla itself changed little in England: a median of about 14% THC, in 2005 as in 2016.

The first figure comes from a meta-analysis of 12 studies, including French data, published in 2021 in Addiction. Herbal cannabis is tracked across 66,747 samples, resin (+0.57 points a year) across 17,371, and CBD stays flat. Most of the studies relied on non-random sampling. Our article on THC and CBD explains how the two molecules differ.

The second comes from a team that went back in 2016 to the five English police areas of 2005 (Drug Testing and Analysis, 2018): across 460 samples analysed out of 995 seized samples, sinsemilla had a median of 14.2% THC, against 13.9% in 2005, with very little CBD. Three of the five authors were affiliated with GW Pharmaceuticals. Finally, the 2019 European study describes a London market where skunk-like cannabis, averaging 14% THC, made up 94% of street supply, while herbal cannabis under 10% was still common in France.

In France, the OFDT publishes the average potency of seizures.

According to that review, published in February 2026, resin potency rose by 86% in twelve years. According to the OFDT overview, herbal cannabis made up 30% of cannabis seizures in 2023, against 6% in 2012. In 2024, 67,607 plants were seized. In plant-seizure cases, outdoor growing accounted for 41% of cases and indoor growing for 25%, with the growing method not stated in 31% of cases; in mainland France, plantations of more than 500 plants are generally set up indoors.

How to read these figures These are means or medians of police seizures, dated by year of seizure: they do not necessarily describe what users consume, and a mean cannot be compared with a median. For 2023, the OFDT overview gives 14.0% and 29%.

The studies that used the word "skunk" link daily use of high-THC cannabis to a higher risk of a first psychotic episode, a risk that grows with frequency and potency. These case-control studies, which are observational, show an association, without proving a cause on their own.

In 2009, a London team compared 280 patients with 174 controls (British Journal of Psychiatry): among users, 78% of patients used high-potency cannabis, sinsemilla or "skunk", against 37% of controls (odds ratio 6.8). In 2015, with 410 patients and 370 controls (Lancet Psychiatry), the adjusted odds ratio reached 2.92 for skunk-like cannabis and 5.4 for its daily use, compared with no use.

The 2019 European study covers 901 patients and 1,237 controls from 11 sites, including Paris (Val-de-Marne) and Puy-de-Dôme. Daily use of cannabis at 10% THC or more gives an odds ratio of 4.8. Assuming a causal link, the authors estimate that 12.2% of first episodes could be prevented without this high-potency cannabis, 30.3% in London and 50.3% in Amsterdam. Potency is inferred from the product participants say they use, with no biological check. Our article on cannabis and mental health covers this research in detail.

Drogues Info Service lists smoking herbal cannabis strongly concentrated in THC among the risk factors for a "bad trip", an anxiety that can reach a panic attack, and advises against use for anyone with a history of psychiatric disorders. Tobacco combined with cannabis also multiplies cancer risks. The service answers on 0 800 23 13 13, every day from 8:00 to 23:00, anonymously and confidentially.

According to a 2021 study, the "skunk" smell does not come mainly from terpenes but from a family of volatile sulfur compounds, with 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol as the main odorant. The animal sprays other thiols, built on a similar carbon skeleton.

A largely Californian team studied flowers and extracts with two-dimensional gas chromatography and a sulfur-specific detector (Oswald et al., ACS Omega, 2021). It identified seven volatile sulfur compounds, five of them carrying a prenyl group. For one variety, a mix of its ten main components, all from the terpene family, lacked the "skunk" note; adding 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol made it appear. Terpenes, such as β-caryophyllene, would rather give each cultivar its nuances. 3-Methyl-2-butene-1-thiol was already known in beer, where it causes the flaw called "skunked beer".

In a trial on four plants in an indoor greenhouse, these compounds were not detected before the seventh week of flowering; most peaked at the end of curing, then dropped sharply ten days later, except one thioacetate, which held steady.

The spray of the striped skunk has seven major components, including (E)-2-butene-1-thiol, 3-methyl-1-butanethiol, their thioacetates and three quinoline compounds (Wood, Journal of Chemical Ecology, 1990). Reading their names, the skunk's 3-methyl-1-butanethiol and the cannabis 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol share the same five-carbon skeleton and differ only by one double bond. The same likeness links two thioacetates, one in the skunk, the other described as "skunk-like" by the 2021 study. These molecules are close relatives without being identical.

The limits of the 2021 study None of the 13 samples, most of them bought from Californian dispensaries, was named Skunk. Odours were rated by a panel of four people. Most of the authors worked for the company Abstrax Tech, and three of them filed a patent related to the findings.

These compounds are neither cannabinoids nor terpenes: a flower's smell says nothing about its THC or its CBD, and an ordinary terpene table does not list them.

No, when the word means cannabis high in THC: it is a controlled drug, and its use is punishable by up to one year in prison and a €3,750 fine; the fixed fine that can end the prosecution has been €500 since 20 August 2026. A CBD flower sold under the name Skunk falls under a different regime, that of hemp, which is reserved for varieties with at most 0.30% Δ⁹-THC.

The rule is set out in Article L3421-1 of the French Public Health Code, in the version introduced by Law No. 2026-798 of 18 August 2026. The €500 fixed fine is reduced to €400 and increased to €1,000. Our article on what a user risks covers driving after use and the other offences, and beuh or weed the slang word for herbal cannabis.

For hemp, the order of 30 December 2021 only authorises varieties whose delta-9-THC content is not above 0.30%, and applies the same cap to hemp extracts and the products that contain them. Paragraph II of its Article 1, which banned the sale of raw flowers and leaves to consumers, was annulled by the Conseil d'État decision of 29 December 2022. Our article on the 0.30% threshold explains how that cap is read.

Yet the two plants belong to the same species; the law only authorises as hemp varieties listed in the catalogue whose Δ⁹-THC content does not exceed 0.30%, as our article on hemp and cannabis explains. Hemp growing methods are compared in indoor, outdoor or greenhouse.

The Skunk flower, listed in the CBD flowers category, is hemp that its product page describes as grown indoors, with a woody, resinous nose. Its name repeats that of the family described above, without saying anything about its genetics. It is for adults only and is not a medicine.

One limit needs stating. No chemical analysis can tell whether a plant really descends from the Californian Skunk #1: that would take a genetic test. What a certificate covers is the batch's cannabinoids, terpenes and contaminants. Our guide to reading a certificate of analysis explains these figures, and our laboratory page lists the catalogue products.

The sources were consulted on 20 October 2026; the dates are those of publication.

• Leafly and SeedFinder, strain pages: living databases.
• Sensi Seeds, interview with Sam the Skunkman: published on 30 November 2023, updated on 12 February 2025. "What is skunk weed" blog post: 2019. Strain pages from Sensi Seeds and Green House Seeds, Alchimia article on Haze: undated.
• Schwabe and McGlaughlin, Journal of Cannabis Research: 2019.
• ACMD, cannabis report: 2008; EMCDDA, Insights No. 6: 2004.
• Freeman et al., Addiction: 2021; Potter et al., Drug Testing and Analysis: 2018.
• Di Forti et al., British Journal of Psychiatry: 2009; Lancet Psychiatry: 2015 and 2019.
• Oswald et al., ACS Omega: 2021; Wood, Journal of Chemical Ecology: 1990.
• OFDT, L'offre de stupéfiants en France en 2024: February 2026; OFDT cannabis overview and Drogues Info Service cannabis page: continuously updated.
• French Public Health Code, Article L3421-1: version in force since 20 August 2026. Order of 30 December 2021; Conseil d'État, decision No. 444887 of 29 December 2022.