Marijuana has many names: cannabis, cannabis indica, cannabis sativa, marihuana, hemp, even cannabis American us but they are all the same plant. Marijuana is used for many different purposes in many different areas.

It’s use has a very long history. Depending on your point of view it can be portrayed as simply fun, evil, useful,or harmless. Western medicine is just beginning to discover the uses of marijuana – some say “re-discovering”.

In Eastern medicine, in contrast, marijuana is one of the basic herbs. With the amount of marijuana grown and consumed in the west, and it’s growing acceptance, we can look forward to more medical developments as time goes by.

At this time the uses of medical marijuana are still being developed Trials and experiments are constantly occurring Novel methods of cooking with herb, and other ways to ingest the plant are being pioneered.You can split the marijuana world down the middle into indica and sativa.

These two types can be further divided into all sorts of sub-strains Breeders have further multiplied these by selective breeding The result is thousands and thousands of strains and names

Each is genetically different and each has, to some degree, unique characteristics Indicas grow faster overall They can be traced to Africa, Central Asia and the sub-continent Indicas are good for hash, and these areas are traditionally known as hash producers.

They tend to be shorter and darker green than sativas, with wide leaves. Once they start flowering they mature in 6 weeks to two months. They get big buds and can be very stinky. They probably are the most useful for medicinal marijuana as the narcotic level is quite high and useful for pain management. Indica is good for indoor growing because of the bud shape and the overall plant size.

Sativas are long and skinny compared to indicas They don’t grow well inside, and while they grow well outside in southern locations they don’t thrive in northern latitudes Sativas come from Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, Colombia and places like that

They get very tall – 15 to 20 feet They are lighter green than indicas, and long and skinny in comparison They also take longer to bloom and mature The effects associated with sativas are paranoia and irregular hear beats This makes medical use of pure sativas more challenging.

That doesn’t mean sativas don’t have medical uses There are many types of both sativas and indicas They can be selectively bred with each other That creates new combinations of effects – some are enhanced and other diminished.

Breeders try to do exactly that -develop new strains with desirable effects They try to develop what users need and desire This has created more crosses and hybrids than pure strains The results are indica/sativa hybrds, with the predominant strain being the first named in the combination

Sativa hybrids are mostly sativa but with some indica balancing It’s the reverse for indica/sativa blends While sativas aren’t good pain blockers they are useful as motivators if the paranoia effect is reduced They help raise appetites that are suppressed by other drugs, and help with depression Indicas are the better pain blocker, however, and so have the widest medical use at present One popular indica hybrid is Northern Lights – the first strain I ever grew with hydroponics.

Learn about ways to grow marijuana. Castulo Zane knows all about it. If you want to talk marijuana seeds, or other topics, google www.growyourownstone.com.