Spring is upon us! Buds, blunts, and psychoactive butter-imbued brownies are all blooming. Which can only mean one thing: 4/20 is around the corner.
The origins of the unofficial holiday known as 4/20 are as harebrained as they are hilarious. In 1971, five teenage stoners who called themselves “The Waldos” hatched a plan to search for a rumored abandoned local cannabis crop. Each afternoon, they met at the Louis Pasteur statue at San Rafael High School to smoke up before their quest. Their meeting time? 4:20 p.m., which they eventually shortened to “420” so they could discuss their plan around parents and teachers without being caught. The rest is history: One Waldo became a Grateful Dead roadie, spreading his lexicon to the masses, and lo, these 50 some years later, marijuana connoisseurs around the globe spark up on April 20 to commemorate the Waldos’ still-uncompleted treasure hunt — but mostly just to celebrate the pure delight of getting blazed with your buddies, if that’s your jam.
These days, the need for a secret code to discuss cannabis is diminishing somewhat, now that 18 states have legalized recreational marijuana and with new cannabis strains sprouting up like, well, weeds.
But if you're wondering which strain is the best match for you, why not use your zodiac sign to find one that reflects your deepest self? Similarly to astrology, ganja grows upon a bedrock of hard scientific data, but galaxy-brains out to a certain level of woo when it comes to individual experience. Read internet reviews for any strain — or just talk to any random group of people at a concert — and you’ll quickly learn there are exceptions to every so-called “rule.” The only way to truly determine what works best for you is self-guided exploration.
That acknowledged, where’s the fun in life without a little flexible and gently-intentioned stereotyping? Below, you can learn which cannabis strain you are based on the stars. Maybe you want to accentuate and underscore your own sun sign, or perhaps you want to find out what it’d be like to spend a hazy afternoon in somebody else’s head space.
Whatever you decide, there’s a strain for you.
Click here to jump to a sign: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces.
Aries is beastly Bruce Banner, the 25-30% THC monster hybrid that will annihilate even the most seasoned stoner’s higher brain functionality. Entering the body with a door-obliterating kick upon arrival, a Bruce Banner high stretches from its brain-blasting inception into a long-lasting, exultant head and body buzz … much like a relationship with an Aries.
Similar to the first fire sign of the zodiac cycle, this strain is versatile and may be enjoyed in many forms. In concentrate or as an edible, however, Bruce Banner can be intimidatingly strong. If you’re interested in trying it out, approach as you would when making conversation with an Aries sun: proceed cautiously unless you are prepared to be overwhelmed.
Wise. Understanding. Expansive. Taurus? Yes. But that also describes Granddaddy Purple, a.k.a. “Grand Daddy Purp,” “GDP,” and “Grandaddy Purple Kush.” A myrcene-alkene indica, the strain was originally developed to relieve physical and mental pain simultaneously. Even the rare imbiber lucky enough to start partaking from a pain- and anxiety-free state can still feel a euphoric sense of relief washing in upon first contact with the purp, like a long hug from a Taurus sun sign. If you intend to tint your vision lavender with GDP, prepare a comfy nest and plan to sink into it for hours while your mind rises to gaze across multiple horizons.
Northern Lights is a 90% indica hybrid that feels like the moment when bright points of starlight first start gleaming through the loam of dusk. It’s a “bedtime” strain but makes you feel so giggly you can lie awake until dawn laughing at the mere sounds of everyday words. Northern Lights is sort of like camping overnight on a beautiful remote bluff with a view of the Milky Way, but without having to contend with the threat of bears, axe murderers, and pooping in the woods.
Northern Lights is also like a really good night spent in companionship with a Gemini, when the air is clear and the conversation is easy and everything — everything — is funny. Don’t imbibe alone unless you’re comfortable making silly small talk with yourself.
“Peanut Butter Breath” sounds like an insult. I’m just acknowledging that upfront, because there’s no graceful way to say, “Hey, know what you remind me of? Peanut Butter Breath” as a compliment, and yet here we are! Who would’ve thought it’d be us?
This strain is a very evenly balanced indica/sativa hybrid, universally acknowledged to taste somewhat nutty and earthy. That might sound like a strange choice to assign to Cancer, the cardinal water sign. Give it a minute, however, and suddenly your nerves turn into running liquid from the top down. It’s best to just sit down from the start so you’re not alarmed when your brain melts away out of your own feet, the little zings of synapses that typically animate your mind flowing away into the groundwater. Before long, you can sense the deep enveloping thrum of all life that depends on liquid water and hear the lilting song of mitochondrial DNA. It’s almost exactly like the way any given Cancer sun sign feels while floating in a swimming pool, but without Cancer’s ever-present burden of concern and responsibility.
Blanketed in diamonds, darling — or is it resin? Yes, Leo is the alarmingly but alluringly monikered Dutch strain White Widow, glamorous and euphoria-inducing all at once. Developed by the Netherlands’ Green House Seed Company, White Widow won the High Times Cannabis Cup in 1995 and has remained internationally famous ever since. This stuff hits as a sudden good mood and a gregarious urge to chat. Surrounding textures are absolutely fascinating, and the sociable Widow compels its user to generously share their observations with anyone in the vicinity: “Just look at the way the light gleams from that dust mote!” “The colors in that painting are magnificent, see this brush stroke here on the left where the green borders yellow?” “Once I had a green hat. I wore it everywhere during the summer of 2007, but it was lost in the Pacific Ocean.”
Main character syndrome is a side effect, although passersby are more likely to experience you as a charmingly bizarre bit player.
Search your heart, you know it to be true: Virgo is Blueberry Yum Yum, as immortalized in the 2004 banger of the same name by Ludacris (birthday September 11) and Sleepy Brown. The song, so earnestly delivered it defies parody, is a convincing ode to the blissful sensations of the strain but also a pragmatic primer on how to practically enjoy it:
Fire, fire got me so tired, I’ma stop, drop, and roll,
Put a wet towel under the door.
Don’t pass it, I can’t take it no more,
Somebody take a trip down to the store.
Hurry please ’cause I need some snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks snacks...
And how long will it take to get back back back back back back?!?
Fire safety? Odor-blocking consideration for your neighbors? Knowledge of and respect for one’s own personal tolerance? The need for snacks and a safe driver to acquire them? This is basically an instructional Virgo anthem on how to best prepare for the calming, physically relaxing effects of Blueberry Yum Yum — which, by the way, is also one of the only substances in the world that can help the average Virgo chill out for five minutes.
Libra sun signs don’t like to be still. Even the most sedentary Libra, the rarity who at this instant isn’t walking/running/dancing/digging/chopping/knitting/drawing/cartwheeling/twiddling right now, is flying around over sprawling landscapes inside their mind. Libra is meant for open spaces under infinite skies and that’s why their strain is Maui Waui.
This classic fruity Hawaiian sativa imparts an intense exhilarating rise, mimicking the buzzy butterfly tummy sensations of a new crush. It’s a high that lends itself to fixation on a creative activity, but just like a Libra’s own brain, it can escalate into anxiety without a suitable outlet to offload the heightened energy it provides. Be certain to have activity and provisions prepared before indulging!
If you choose to partake, follow the example of the author of the highest-ranked review for the strain on Leafly: “Smoked a bowl of this and got inspired enough to clean my entire house. I felt incredibly accomplished and rewarded myself by eating a whole chicken.” Managing a Maui Waui high, much like life as a Libra, is all about balance.
POV: You sit down on the couch to watch a movie, but just as you reach for the remote, a freezing white fire catches behind your eyeballs and frizzles your consciousness into a small, dense point at the base of your skull. Your limbs fall loose and heavy, sinking into the soft surface and descending slowly, slowly still further into the depths, called by a stronger-than-usual gravity pulling your body through the atoms of the earth itself in pursuit of even greater resistance. The Netflix menu screen autoplays endlessly, dimly, as your mind expands to accommodate an awed reverence for the dimension of time. You don’t move at all for seven and a half hours.
You are either:
- a Scorpio indulging in your typical sober weekend relaxation routine, or
- anybody of any sign who took a hit of Gorilla Glue on a Saturday afternoon.
Either way, don’t drive for at least another day after the feeling wears off, maybe two.
Sour Diesel launches partakers off the couch and into motion with an irrepressible propulsion to Do Stuff. It’s loud, it’s cheerful, it’s talkative and delighted and easily distractible: Sour Diesel is the Sagittarius of bud strains.
Walking around in public after enjoying the sativa hybrid will lead to bizarre but entertaining social encounters with fellow members of the human species. You might unexpectedly learn to ride a unicycle or acquire a pogo stick! Both Sagittarians and Sour Deez smokers should be supplied with plenty of enrichment puzzles and projects to provide adequate mental stimulation while under the influence of Sour Diesel. It’s a polarizing high; you either love vacationing inside of a Sag-style brain-state or you think, Dear God, why in the name of anything holy would you ever want to feel this way? Sag suns and Sour Diesel fans alike would say you’ll never know unless you try!
Don’t get it confused: Capricorns are an ambitious people, and when their ambitions run to getting high, they achieve. Hardcore Capricorn stoners exist in much greater abundance than other signs might realize.
Caps are famed for their constant need for control, however, and it’s readily apparent that the Capricorn archetype, as a weed strain, is Harlequin. This award-winning sativa hybrid is unique in pairing a low psychoactive THC content with a higher than usual percentage of cannabidiol (CBD). The combination relaxes the body while stimulating — but not heavily intoxicating — the nervous system. Basically, Harlequin gives you a bunch of the good body effects of ganj without messing up your mind.
Marijuana strain reviews always make for a fun read, but the Harlequin user review comments on Leafly.com are truly a heart-wrenching, life-affirming text: a record of people successfully controlling pain, expanding physical capability, easing anxiety, or being able to simply enjoy a manageable high without triggering panic attacks. Harlequin doesn’t have a wild reputation like other strains, but the whole world is better for having it around. This Capricorn of cannabis tones the volume of the proverbial party to a level almost everyone can enjoy.
Aquarius is the sign that always gets slammed with weed jokes on astrology meme accounts, and that’s fitting: To an extent, Aquarians have the clock in their minds set to 1969. But at the same time, it’s a bit of reductive association, because the truth is Aquarians are just like that, sober or intoxicated!
Contrarily, in the nonconformist style of the water-carrier, Aquarius’ strain is Charlotte’s Web, a hemp-derived CBD strain that doesn’t induce a psychoactive high at all. Originally called “Hippie’s Disappointment” by its developers for its lack of THC, it gained its legacy name when it was found to drastically reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures for a young girl named Charlotte Figi, whose story has helped persuade lawmakers to legalize marijuana.
Doing something weird that utterly fails at its initially intended purpose, only to discover it’s the solution to a far more important problem? Charlotte’s Web is truly the Aquarian dream.
Drag icon Alaska Thunderfuck, born March 6, is a Pisces. Alaskan Thunder Fuck (ATF), the sativa-dominant strain from which the queen’s stage name is derived, is also a Pisces. ATF the strain emerged mysteriously from prior nonexistence at some point in the latter twentieth century. Maybe it was first grown in the Matanuska Valley? No seed bank or breeder has ever claimed its initial creation. But once it arrived, however it did so, the strain established itself as an enduring legend.
ATF is not a sleepy bedtime smoke; this stuff is wake-and-bake-and-get-shit-done. It has a strong pungent scent and a sweet fruity taste. It’s an intensely cerebral experience that continues to rise for a long time following consumption: once you’ve chosen to imbibe, you’re locked in for the full ride. Some ADHD users report that the strain helps them sustain focus. However, people should dip their toes gingerly before diving in headfirst. The relentless onslaught of resultant thought can induce paranoia. Stretch first. In order to inhabit a Piscean state of emotion, it’s important to be appropriately bendy.
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