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| Cannabis To Sniff Out The Drug Lords |
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Posted by FoM on March 11, 2002 at 07:32:10 PT By Graham Diggines Source: Scotsman UK 
International drug smugglers will soon find their movements being more closely monitored by police thanks to a pioneering process being developed at Edinburgh University. The work of the scientists, which is being supported by the United Nations and Lothian and Borders Police, will allow authorities to discover where drugs are coming from and whether anti-drugs measures are working. The process involves using cannabis as a "tracker" drug under the assumption that heroin and cocaine traffickers peddle the category C drug as well. Using advanced know-how unique to Edinburgh University, researchers can tell how far north or south of the equator a batch of cannabis has been grown according to the levels of hydrogen and carbon in the drug. The altitude at which the crop has been cultivated can be gauged according to nitrogen levels. Finally, by cross-matching the information with samples taken from known cannabis farms across the world, scientists will soon be able to tell the origin of any cannabis seizure to within 100 miles. David Kilgour, 26, has been working on the project with his supervisor, Dr Patrick Langridge-Smith, for two years. He said: "This research will give police a valuable head start on the drugs gangs without having to rely on people infiltrating their ranks - which is obviously very dangerous. Lothian and Borders Police initially said this couldn’t be done but we’re proving that it can and they are now providing us with cannabis samples to help our research. "The UN is also very interested because this process will be able to show how effective their anti-drugs measures are." Mr Kilgour explained that the UN has a raft of measures it uses to dissuade cannabis farmers around the world from producing the highly lucrative contraband crop. This includes paying them to destroy hemp plants. Using the Edinburgh University breakthrough the UN will be able to see if the measures are working in areas, such as Afghanistan, the Middle East or Africa, by seeing how much cannabis from those areas turns up in drugs raids. The UN is arranging for samples from known cannabis producing regions to help Edinburgh University complete its research. Mr Kilgour said: "This could be one of the most time-consuming parts of the research because diplomacy over such a sensitive issue can take a long time. "For instance we were able to obtain cannabis from Afghanistan just before September 11. "But if America decides to take military action against Iraq that could complicate the process even further because so many Muslim countries produce cannabis." A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "This research could provide useful intelligence on where cannabis in the Edinburgh area comes from and what routes might be used for the drugs to arrive in this part of the country." A Customs and Excise spokesman said: "We work very closely with colleagues overseas to try and find ways to stop drugs entering the country in the first place. Knowing where drugs come from would be vitally important in that respect." The research is just one of the breakthroughs to be shown to Princess Anne when she opens the University of Edinburgh’s new Biomolecular Research Centre today. More than £8 million has been ploughed into the new centre off West Mains Road by a number of groups, including The Wellcome Trust, Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, and Scottish Enterprise. The Princess Royal will also see how steroid analysis could help combat heart disease and new ways of killing the potentially fatal parasites which cause sleeping sickness in Africa. Growing Concern: Scientists will soon be able to tell the origin of any seized cannabis to within 100 miles. Source: Scotsman (UK) Related Article: Ole Miss Works Toward Tracing Drug Origins CannabisNews - Cannabis Archives Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #6 posted by john wayne on March 12, 2002 at 23:06:21 PT |
| Prohibitionists broken record, Side A:
"We're helpless against the drug hordes, for god's sake give us more money, more guns, more men, more laws!" Flipping it over to side B: "We'll soon have these mysterious druggies nailed down with our new polar-ray-dynamosphere device. (Ain't it keen?!)" [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #5 posted by Herbdoc215 on March 11, 2002 at 23:58:47 PT:
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| Indoor, greenhouses, controled genetic programs mixing all known genomes of world searching for "magic bullet" strains by breeders chasing the American dream around world, adding plant hormones of varying strength's at varying stages of plants life cycle to effect physiological changes, Ploidism changes made to plants genome due to mutagenic agents being added, Differing amounts of C02 added to growing plants causing their metabolism to raise thus effecting their balence of elements ( ie, sugars, starches, ergo hydrogen,or nitrogen levels will be altered ) and elemental breakdown. NOW your going to tell me that some clowns who cannot even quantify global warming or it's lasting effects upon the earth can look at a GC-MS and tell me were a bag of grass was grown, AND then it's somehow going to have some cause and effect relationship with herion and cocaine movements on a global scale? I want whatever these dudes are smoking at U of E, cause I spent a summer there studying and I never got no resin that good! What this really is we all in movement know sop well, The Marijuana Exception, which covers any foolishness desired of the day, From Manson to Clinton getting blowjobs it's all the dreaded weed, Cause they have limited access so long to UMISS and those gov't clowns and scientific whores that they KNOW they can lie with impunity cause whose spent the lab time to argue with them? Catch-22, yes but we need to facilitate claudistine research because if we keep waiting for massa to let us be free we'ssa gonna be'ssa waitin long time nowsa boss. From somewhere over the edge, Steven Tuck [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #4 posted by ekim on March 11, 2002 at 17:47:05 PT:
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| The process involves using cannabis as a "tracker" drug under the assumption that heroin and cocaine traffickers peddle the category C drug as well. Just Cannabis thats all that is mentioned. Oh ya the Hemp plant is to. There must be a real war heating up over there. The money would be better spent on a cost benifit assesment of how much the drug war is costing. Like the distillers are sitting on there hands --not. mike [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on March 11, 2002 at 09:45:15 PT |
| I have a foolproof way to tell where a bottle of alcohol comes from. You look at the label. If we legalized and regulated cannabis in a similar manner, it'd be very easy to tell where it came from. Plus, the drug gangs would lose a source of revenue, and the tax system would gain one. If this answer is too full of common sense for the current politicians, I'm sure we'll all be glad to vote for someone else. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by SpaceCat on March 11, 2002 at 09:35:24 PT |
| Good for getting grants, I guess, but it does seem unlikely that it will work in the real world. I might believe a genetic analysis, but good luck getting clean and verifiable samples to build your baseline database. Since the hydroponic gardener completely controls the environment, you could theoretically create nutrient profiles to simulate any conditions possible to grow Cannabis under, making it impossible to tell anything about its origins. I have a simpler method of determining if prohibition is working- Stable prices, easy availability, increasing potency and variety=no, it ain't! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by project419 on March 11, 2002 at 09:14:07 PT |
| I don't believe this article at all...there is no way they will be able to tell where weed comes from just by running a few tests on it..How are they gonna tell where some indoor weed is grown? Because indoor weed grown in india and indoor weed grown in America how are they going to tell the difference?...maybe i just didnt read the article to understand it [ Post Comment ] |
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