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Dr. Cannabis

Glossary

Strain

The common commercial name for a cannabis variety. Not standardised, not regulated, and a poor predictor of chemistry.

Two products sold under the same strain name from different growers can have substantially different cannabinoid and terpene content. Strain names are marketing, not specification.

If you find something that works, note the cannabinoid percentages and the top three terpenes from the lab result. That combination is far more reproducible than the name.

Also written as: cultivar.

Related terms

Sources

  1. Russo EB. The Case for the Entourage Effect and Conventional Breeding of Clinical Cannabis: No "Strain," No Gain. Frontiers in Plant Science. 2019;9:1969.(DOI 10.3389/fpls.2018.01969)Accessed 2026-08-15.
  2. Smith CJ, Vergara D, Keegan B, Jikomes N. The phytochemical diversity of commercial Cannabis in the United States. PLOS ONE. 2022;17(5):e0267498.(DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0267498)Accessed 2026-08-15.