People ran with “Indica puts you down, Sativa picks you up” for years. Dispensaries pushed that hard because it was what they knew at the time. Then terps started to be what all the budtenders were talking about, which helped a little, but still doesn’t tell the whole story. Now new science is showing 
that volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) play a major role. That loud, gassy hit you get from OG Kush or the citrus rind blast you get from Tangie? That’s probably them. They might actually shape the high more than terps do.
Indica and Sativa were visual categories at first. Back in the 1700s when botanists were first cataloging cannabis, they were just going off how the plant looked. Tall and narrow vs short and bushy. They did make some notes on effects, but more or less the level of psycho-activity. Kinda wild we’re still running on 300-year-old mantras like plant shape tells the whole story. I’ve smoked plenty of “sativas” that were supposed to be clear and uplifting. Two hits later I’m melted into the couch.
Posted by David Flynn on LinkedIn. He’s got an interesting background. “I started selling weed in high school so my friends and I could smoke for free,” he says. “I never finished college and bounced around jobs all while supplementing my income selling weed. Things got serious when I got into music festivals and Grateful Dead scene. Read more about David on LinkedIn.