Strain Review: Methodology

Today the MJO is going to publish the first of hopefully many strain reviews. But we want to lay out our methodology for you first, so that you understand the bases on which we are rating strains. In short, we took some guidelines as laid down by Cannabis Cup judge Jorge Cervantes and then adapted them into a numerical rating system which will be explained below.

In order to completely understand the MJO rating system, we recommend you watch the video above before continuing any further. As can be seen, Cervantes judges strains based on four key factors:

1. The appearance of the marijuana strain. Several things are looked for when judging marijuana appearance including the feel of the marijuana, how covered with stalk tricombs (crystals) it is, and whether it is properly dried.
2. The fragrance of the marijuana strain. We at the MJO want our marijuana to have a strong, pleasing odor.
3. The taste of the marijuana. Better tasting marijuana will be rated higher.
4. How intoxicated the marijuana strain gets you. Obviously, the more the better.

All four factors will be rated on a scale from 1 to 10. Then we double the fourth rating (because the MJO believes that the main objective of smoking marijuana is to get intoxicated) and add it to the ratings for appearance, fragrance, and taste in order to get a Raw Score. The Raw Score is then doubled to produce our first metric, the MJO Score. Obviously, a "perfect strain" would have a Raw Score of 50 and correspondingly a MJO Score of 100.

Because we recognize that the cost of the strain is an important determinant in ascertaining its desirability to you, we want to introduce another metric, the MJO Value Index. The MJO Value Index is determined by taking the Raw Score and simply dividing it by the price per .125 gm (1/8 of an ounce) of the strain. Barring the introduction of extremely cheap, high-quality marijuana into the market, the MJO Value Index will range from 0 to 1 with marijuana strains that are an extremely good value being closer to 1 on the MJO Value Index and strains that can be considered overpriced or a "rip-off" being closer to 0 on the MJO Value Index. For example, take the "perfect" strain above: if it cost $50 its MJO Value Index would be 1 (50/$50) but if it cost $60 its MJO Value Index would be 0.83 (50/$60). This simply corresponds to the principle that if two goods are the same, the cheaper one is a better value. The MJO Value Index for any particular marijuana strain is best ascertained relative to the MJO Value Index of another strain but for the purposes of our initially limited data set let's assume that MJO Value Indexes above 0.5 represent a good buy and MJO Value Indexes below 0.5 represent a bad buy.

Thus, our two metrics: MJO Score and MJO Value Index. If you forget what the metrics mean or how they are derived, don't worry about it. Just remember higher numbers are better on both scales. In the end, our only hope is that MJO Score and MJO Value Index are two figures you keep in mind when making your marijuana purchasing decisions. If you see any errors in our methodology or any way we can improve our rating system please let us know.