How Leafly’s New Cannabis Guide Makes Understanding Marijuana Easy

Understanding marijuana just got a whole lot easier thanks to Leafly’s new cannabis guide. In the past, we used indica, sativa, and hybrids as the differentiating factor of cannabis. However, this is now an archaic way of looking at the plant. It merely gives insight into the plants lineage and how it grows.

Now, we understand that cannabis isn’t so simple. You can’t just break it down into three distinct categories. We have begun to realize that not only do the cannabinoids in a strain dictate the effects, but more importantly, the terpenes do. That’s why leafly has designed an intuitive guide to understanding cannabis in the 21st century.

How does Leafly’s new cannabis guide work?

Leafly’s guide is largely visual, and displays how the major components in a strain will dictate the effects users feel. It breaks down cannabinoids like THC and CBD. For example. THC is a diamond, and CBD is a circle.

From there, they broke out terpenes into colors. We’ve recently become aware that terpenes hold a lot of weight in how a strain will make you feel. Myrcene, indicated as blue, is one of the most prominent terpenes found in cannabis. It produces a calm, sedative feeling.

Limonene, on the other hand, is a more uplifting, energetic terpene. It is denoted by the color yellow. There are other major terpenes included in Leafly’s cannabis guide, including:

Linalool – purple
Humulene – light green
Pinene – dark green
Terpinolene – orange
Caryophyllene – magenta
Ocimene – pink

Putting colors and shapes together to understand a strain

This guide puts shapes and colors together to create an easy depiction of a “snowflake”, which gives you an in-depth understanding of a strain.

Leafly worked tirelessly with labs across the country to develop their data for as many strains as possible. They researched the cannabinoids and terpenes, to get an idea of how strains will actually make you feel.

One example of how outdated “indica and sativa” characteristics is is White Tahoe Cookies. This strain is classified as an indica. However, research uncovered that the terpenes in this strain result in a very uplifting energetic high. Someone smoking White Tahoe Cookies with the hopes of the “indica” knocking them out for the night would likely be confused as to why they aren’t tired at all after consuming it.