Decade

Cannabis strains from the 1980s

The 1980s formalized cannabis breeding into a commercial discipline. Sam the Skunkman stabilized Skunk #1 around 1983, Neville Schoenmakers founded The Seed Bank in 1984 and released Northern Lights as a commercial product, and Ben Dronkers opened Sensi Seeds in 1985 with a catalogue built on those same Afghan-leaning hybrids. The decade saw the first wave of Dutch coffeeshop strains — Hindu Kush hybrids, early Haze crosses, and the indica-dominant indoor cultivars that would dominate Amsterdam grow rooms for the next twenty years. American genetics moved to Holland under prohibition pressure, and the Dutch industry became the global clearinghouse for stabilized seed. The 1980s strains listed below are the foundational hybrids that the 1990s Cannabis Cup catalogue would later be built on.