The history of Pineapple Express

Timeline

1. Years before 2008“Pineapple Express” is already the name of a weather pattern, an atmospheric river that carries moisture from the tropics near Hawaii to the US West Coast; Seth Rogen says co-writer Evan Goldberg heard it and thought it would make a great film title.^3,5,6
2. Mid-2000sG13 Labs, according to Weedmaps, claims it originated the strain, choosing Trainwreck and Hawaiian as parents, and the hybrid soon spread through California’s medical dispensaries.²
3. Aug 2008The film Pineapple Express, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and directed by David Gordon Green, opens; its plot features a rare strain of the same name.^1,7
4. 2014On Denver’s Everyday Show, Rogen says: “There was no Pineapple Express weed before the movie.”^7,8
5. 2015–2024The 461 state lab tests of Pineapple Express flower in our dataset date from these years.⁹
6. Mar 2017Leafly reports that Google’s search panel for the film shows Leafly’s strain rating, 4.4 from nearly 1,700 reviews, beside the film’s IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes scores.¹⁰
7. Aug 2018For the film’s 10th anniversary, Rogen writes that there was no strain called Pineapple Express when it was made: “if one day, people are out there selling weed called Pineapple Express, it worked.”^3,6
8. 2022#6 on Leafly’s list of the year’s best-selling strains.¹¹
9. 2023#7 on Leafly’s best-seller list, which describes it as Trainwreck × Hawaiian.¹²
10. Jan–Nov 2025In California it sells $27.4 million in vape pens, behind Blue Dream, and $8.5 million in pre-rolls, third place, per Cannabis Business Times.¹³
11. 2025#5 nationally in Leafly’s ranking of dispensary orders, and #1 in Illinois.⁴
12. Jul 2026Leafly’s list of the 100 best strains, as updated in July, includes it among the best for feeling energetic.¹⁴

Why it spread

A famous name and a familiar flavor. Leafly’s 2025 best-seller list calls it “our favorite example of fiction influencing reality”, and Rogen had hoped for exactly that: if people one day sold weed called Pineapple Express, he wrote, the film had worked.^3,4 Weedmaps says the hybrid proliferated among California’s medical dispensaries, and the seed shop Zamnesia says it “took over the cannabis market” after the film came out.^2,15

Leafly’s editors credit the taste: in 2025 they tied its lead in Illinois to its “tropical-breeze-in-a-puff flavor”, and in 2023 they called it a tropical sativa with “a tang that soothes the sting of a straight Trainwreck”.^4,12

The name: a weather pattern first

Before it was a film or a strain, “Pineapple Express” named a weather pattern: NOAA describes it as a strong atmospheric river that can carry moisture from the tropics near Hawaii to the US West Coast.⁵ Rogen says the system sometimes reaches the Pacific Northwest, where he and Goldberg are from, and that Goldberg heard the name and thought it would suit a film.^3,6 Most accounts give the strain a Hawaiian parent as well.^16,17

The disputed parts of the story

• Which came first: G13 Labs claims the mid-2000s, according to Weedmaps; Rogen said in 2014 and 2018 that no strain had the name before the film; Pua Mana Pakalolo calls its version a Hawaiian strain “shrouded in mystery and myth”.^2,3,8,18
• Parents: Trainwreck × Hawaiian in most accounts, Big Bud × Hawaiian Skunk on G13 Labs’ own product page, Trainwreck × Kona Gold for Pua Mana Pakalolo (see genetics).^16,18,19
• Indica or sativa: 60% sativa for AllBud, Barney’s Farm and Crop King; 70% indica for G13 Labs.^17,19,20,21