Buyer's Guides
Cannabis, side by side.
Plain-English comparisons to help you tell two options apart. Pick the one that maps to the choice you are making.
Indica vs Sativa vs Hybrid
Walk into any licensed New York cannabis dispensary and you will see strain jars labeled indica, sativa, or hybrid. Those labels are useful shorthand at the counter and required on every licensed package, but they are only rough predictors of how a given cultivar will affect a given person. What tracks the real effect more closely is the chemovar: the mix of cannabinoid content and terpene profile in a particular plant. This page covers what the labels originally meant, what decades of cross-breeding did to the distinction, what the chemovar framework is, and how to use the labels at the counter without leaning on them too hard.
Read →Live Rosin vs Live Resin
Live rosin and live resin are both premium cannabis concentrates. Both use flash-frozen cannabis starting material to preserve volatile terpenes that would otherwise degrade during traditional drying and curing. The differentiator is what happens after the flash-freezing. Live rosin is solventless. Live resin uses hydrocarbon solvent. The two extraction paths produce different chemistry, different price points, different COA profiles, and different fits depending on what the consumer actually wants from the product.
Read →THC vs CBD
THC and CBD are the two most studied cannabinoids in cannabis. Both interact with the body's endocannabinoid system, but at different receptors and with different effects. Knowing how they differ makes it easier to pick the right product, whether you want a strong high, something gentler for anxiety or sleep, or no intoxication at all.
Read →Edibles vs Vapes
Edibles and vapes are two of the most common cannabis formats you will see at a licensed New York dispensary, and they work in very different ways. Edibles are swallowed and processed through the liver, so the effect comes on slowly and lasts a long time. Vapes are inhaled and absorbed through the lungs, so the effect comes on fast and fades faster. Which one fits you depends on how quickly you want it to kick in, how long you want it to last, how exactly you want to control the dose, and how discreet you need to be.
Read →Pre-Rolls vs Flower
Pre-rolls and flower are two sides of the same category. Both are smoked cannabis. The difference is who does the work and how much control you keep. A pre-roll is ground, rolled, and packaged for you. Flower is sold in a jar for you to break down and roll yourself, or to pack into a pipe, bong, or dry-herb vaporizer.
Read →Indoor vs Outdoor vs Greenhouse Cannabis
Cannabis is grown three main ways: indoor under artificial light, outdoor under the sun, and greenhouse under a mix of sun and supplemental light. Each method tends to produce flower with a different look and feel, a different cost to grow, and a different environmental footprint. Knowing the difference helps you match the method to the experience, the budget, and the values that matter to you.
Read →The Alchemy vs Big Chain Dispensaries
The New York adult-use cannabis market has room for a lot of different kinds of stores. There are independent shops, small local operators with a handful of locations, and the national multi-state operators, the MSO chains, that you may already know from other states. They all hold the same kind of license. The New York Office of Cannabis Management sets the rules every licensed retailer follows: age checks, lab testing, packaging, the works. On paper, the license is the same.
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