Panama Red

Panama Red, which Wikipedia describes as a pure sativa cultivar favoured by users in the 1960s and 1970s, gives this flower its name.

Panama, the Pearl Islands and a clay-red colour

Wikipedia says the strain was named for being grown in Panama and for its red, clay-like colour, and that growing it was widespread in Panama’s thinly populated Pearl Islands. Other names on record there are Panamanian red and P.R., and Leafly adds Red. Leafly describes a cross of Panama and Colombia, credits the breeder Reeferman, and lists Compton Creek and Pan Jam among the strain’s children.

Famous by the late 1960s, slow to flower

Leafly calls Panama Red an old-school classic that became famous in the late 1960s for speedy, intense effects bordering on psychedelic, and AllBud credits its rise in that decade to the name and its pure sativa effects. Flowering takes at least 11 weeks, Leafly notes, and growers moved on to faster strains. Its high THC is thought to come from the cultivar rather than the Panamanian climate, Wikipedia says: in a limited test, seed from Panama Red grown in the Canal Zone, raised on the Auburn University campus and in northern New Hampshire, produced marijuana with similar THC content.

Tea, pepper and tropical fruit

Leafly tags the flavour tea, pepper and earthy, and its write-up adds spicy, herbal and tropical notes. AllBud’s flavour list runs to citrus, grapefruit, herbal, spicy, sweet and tropical, over an aroma of citrus, earth, grapefruit and sweetness, and it describes light-green buds dusted with crystals and a pungent, earthy, woody smell and taste. One AllBud reviewer of a landrace-type Panama Red describes large buds covered in red hairs. Myrcene is the lead terpene in Leafly’s data, ahead of pinene and limonene.

Our Panama Red guide carries a tip from Steven De Guzman that plays on the tea note: have black tea or chai on hand to drink with it, and take small pulls, as one reviewer found big ones a little harsh.

Energetic and talkative, in reviews

Leafly’s reviewer tags put energetic, talkative and happy at the top, and Leafly rates the effects mostly energizing. AllBud describes a distinctly cerebral high with euphoria, relaxation, happiness and sociability, and Wikipedia a mellow cerebral high with slight body relaxation, more energy and a creativity boost.

Leafly’s figure for THC is around 17%, with CBG at 1%; AllBud’s range is 16% to 22%. Health Canada‘s starting point for smoking pairs 1 or 2 puffs with a THC content of 10% or less; smoking is felt in seconds to minutes, and its peak can arrive as much as 30 minutes later.

A name in films, comics and song

Wikipedia lists appearances in the films Apocalypse Now (1979), Detroit Rock City (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000), in the 1970s comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and in the animated series Trailer Park Boys. Peter Rowan’s song Panama Red, it adds, was partly inspired by the strain.