The Broccoli Report – Why Weed Genes Matter: The Limitations of Strain Names and Appellations.

“On dispensary shelves in every legal state—and written in Sharpie on countless clandestine Ziploc baggies—appear thousands of strain names that mean close to nothing. Dawgwalker. Girl Scout Cookies. SFV OG. You may have the real deal, flower grown from seed, or a clone directly handed from the original breeder. But it’s more likely the Dawgwalker you’re smoking has different terpene and cannabinoid concentrations than its namesake. The reason for this is the absence of a standardized way to certify what you’re smoking is indeed what it says it is. Therein lies perhaps the biggest problem in the cannabis industry: the glaring lack of a concrete, science-backed catalog of cannabis cultivars and their genetics.

The bigger problem? We’re underestimating how much this affects all of us working in and around the industry.

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 67 into law, creating a framework for appellations of origin only accessible to outdoor cultivators. 

The bill fine-tunes the Cannabis Appellations Program, an arm of the California Department of Agriculture that borrows conventions from the wine industry, which uses “appellations of origin” to designate where the wine is grown. The CAP aims to promote regional goods and local businesses, prevent the misrepresentation of a cannabis good’s origin, and support consumer confidence about these origins and characteristics. The idea is to ensure that weed labeled “Humboldt-grown” was indeed grown in Humboldt, and that it was grown in the actual ground—quite literally. This law specifies that appellation certifications would only apply to flower grown in the regional soil, without a greenhouse, hoop house, glasshouse, hothouse—no structure allowed. No artificial lighting, either. This disqualifies a great many distinguished cultivators responsible for some of the most ubiquitous cultivars. …”

Read the full article by Lauren Yoshiko at The Broccoli Report.