Breaking Down the Medicinal Value of Sativas

Breaking Down the Medicinal Value of Sativas

High Times | 4.19.2012 | Greg Green


In today’s age of medical marijuana, government propaganda is all but dead. The more you know about your medicine, the more effective it can be.



The scientific evidence for the medicinal value of cannabis is so well documented in the peer-reviewed literature that the case for cannabis as medicine is now firmly established. As a result, if someone says that cannabis medicine is a joke, the proper 21st century reply is: “You are welcome to your unsupported opinion, but the scientific evidence for cannabis as medicine is overwhelming.” Referring that person to Google Scholar – a database of scientific, peer-reviewed articles that constitutes the best reference for anyone ignorant on this subject – will return over 50,000 peer-reviewed articles alone. The first couple hundred scientific papers address the topic directly. All of them confirm that, yes, cannabis is a medicine. For the naysayers, it is simply game over.

Cannabis Types

These days, we are more concerned with how cannabis works as medicine and what the various treatment types and options are. Also, many medical users wish to be fully self-sufficient; this means not obtaining their medical marijuana by any other means except cultivating and preparing it themselves. For many first-time users, however, questions arise with respect to which type of cannabis they need to grow. To answer that question, we must first understand that cannabis is a genus of its own in the plant kingdom. Its taxonomic nomenclature (or scientific name) is actually Cannabis sativa L., which (confusingly enough, for newcomers) has three distinct species: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica and Cannabis ruderalis.


However, there are really only two types to choose from when growing cannabis for medicine, indica or sativa (ruderalis is a hardy, hempy, low-potency species not typically grown for ingestion), and both are grown quite differently and with different results. So the medical user must first decide which type is going to be more beneficial. Fortunately, they don’t really have to become an expert on the ins and outs of cannabis botany or biochemistry to find the right type for them: Simply sampling both – and different varieties of each – can be enough. Many medical marijuana outlets have plenty of samples to choose from, so when the medical user finds the strain they need, they can then begin to examine their self-sufficiency options with that strain, assuming it’s available in seed or clone form.


Medical Marijuana Basics

For this article, we shall focus on sativas, which are pretty much the iconic type of cannabis that we see in all those marijuana-leaf media images. For all its popularity as an icon, however, it’s actually the type of cannabis that most home growers have very little experience with – especially the pure type.


You’ve undoubtedly heard of sativas such as Cambodian, Haze or Thai, but you may not know that these are some of the most difficult strains to grow. So if a medical user wants to be self-sufficient and needs a pure sativa, they’ll be undertaking a much more specialized and complicated home grow than someone who chooses an indica. Sometimes a mostly sativa hybrid (i.e., a plant with both sativa and indica genes) may be sufficient, and this can reduce both the difficulty and the flowering times, since such hybrids are easier to grow – but the user will have to forgo some of the sativa effects for the indica influence. So, all in all, indica users are at an advantage, since indicas grow faster and are more forgiving when it comes to growroom mistakes. Sativa growers, on the other hand, really need to put the work in.


The main difference for the medical user between indicas and sativas is the plants’ biochemistry, in particular the different types of active chemical compounds in cannabis, referred to as cannabinoids. There are 85 known cannabinoids in the plant, and probably many more. (The number keeps growing every year as new research discovers more of them.) It’s not possible here to go through all of the cannabinoids and their effects on humans; however, we can talk about the primary ones, which appear in the plant in much greater quantities and largely explain the major variations in the medicinal differences between sativas and indicas. These include tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabinol (CBN), cannabigerol (CBG), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV or THV) and cannabidiol (CBD).


Cannabinoids and Their Effects

The main effects from cannabis use are produced in the human body by the specific, membrane-bound receptors called CB1 (found mostly in the brain) and CB2 (mostly in the immune system), to which many of these cannabinoids bind. THC, for example, is used by both the CB1 and CB2 receptors, and its neuroprotective qualities ease pain in most medical marijuana users. The medicinal value of THC is wide-ranging, with new applications being found all the time.


Cannabinol (CBN) is also psychoactive, but it’s basically the result of THC as it degrades. CBN’s effects have been described as very similar to THC, though weaker. Cannabigerol (CBG) binds to CB1 and CB2 receptors and appears to help with glaucoma and other forms of ocular pressure that need to be released.


Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV or THV) is quite interesting. While it is nonpsychoactive, it appears to be very similar to THC, and it also has a large range of medical applications, from diabetes to problems relating to the human metabolism. THCV/THV is a very popular cannabinoid with pharmaceutical companies looking to market its applications, particularly because of the practical side to its non-psychoactive yet medically valuable similarity to THC.


Cannabidiol (CBD) is the compound that has created the most excitement among medical researchers in recent years. While CBD doesn’t seem to interact directly with the CB1 and CB2 receptors, it does appear to interact with other receptors in the body, producing relief from inflammation, nausea, anxiety and convulsions, among other uses. As with THC, new applications for CBD are being discovered all the time.



Sativas vs. Indicas

One way of understanding the distinction between indicas and sativas as medicine is by looking at the CBD-to-THC ratio. In general, indicas have a higher CBD-to-THC ratio, whereas sativas have a lower one – meaning that indicas are known for having higher percentages of CBD than sativas. For those looking to minimize the unwanted psychoactive effects of THC, that makes indicas an obvious choice. But if a medical user wants the psychoactive effects, then they would look to a pure sativa or, more likely, a sativa-dominant hybrid – while, in general, medical marijuana users looking for full-body, relaxing effects or relief from physical pain will turn to indica or indica-dominant hybrids, since experiments show it is highly likely that CBD is contributing to this pain inhibition.


As with anything in medicine, though, it’s not always as black-and-white as this, so a caution is given in assuming that indicas and sativas always perform this way – meaning that indicas don’t always produce a body-stone effect, and sativas don’t always deliver an uplifting, cerebral high. Overall, it may very well turn out that indica strains contain a greater number of cannabinoids than sativa strains do. (I personally think this is very likely.) As a result, someone medicating with an indica strain is almost guaranteed to find the right cannabinoid that they need to help their medical problem, making it a good bet to try indicas before sativas. On the other hand, if sativas turn out to contain fewer cannabinoids that indicas, then the unwanted cannabinoids can conceivably be eliminated by choosing a sativa.

Benefits of Sativas

So what are the sativas’ medical benefits? Sativas can help with psychological problems, including depression, as well as aid in encouraging activity. Sativas are better suited as a stimulating medicine, though they have been known to relieve some kinds of pain, including migraines. The uplifting effects of sativas mean that they make a good medicine to take in the mornings or during the day. However, sativa users need to consider if they’re really the best option for evening and nighttime use, because the cerebral effects – somewhat analogous to caffeine – can keep the user awake. Certainly the purer varieties of sativa will do this, so if a sativa user is having trouble sleeping, then it’s time to consider a more balanced sativa/indica hybrid as their medicine – or possibly even switching to indica use in the evening. This may also help reduce the amount of tolerance that the body develops toward the medicine, which is something that all medical users have to contend with – there are times when interrupting one’s regular use and then restarting it later helps to combat tolerance-related problems