Whether you’re an adult-use consumer looking for a specific kind of high or a medical patient seeking symptom relief, the THC:CBD ratio will strongly affect your experience. As Leafly has explored previously, CBD is able to diminish some of THC’s effects because it interacts with receptors in the brain very differently than THC does.
The psychoactive effects of cannabis depend on THC’s ability to activate the CB1 receptor. The presence of CBD changes THC’s ability to activate CB1 receptors and laboratory studies in both animals and humans, which tells us that CBD can diminish some of THC’s effects (Figure 1). This is a big reason why a balanced strain like Harlequin or Cannatonic will hit you very differently from THC-dominant strains like Blue Dream, Sour Diesel, or Northern Lights.