cannabisnews.com: Growing Marijuana With Government Approval





Growing Marijuana With Government Approval
Posted by CN Staff on December 22, 2008 at 20:39:03 PT
By Claudia Dreifus
Source: New York Times 
Q. WHAT EXACTLY DOES THE MARIJUANA PROJECT DO?A. Though cannabis had been used by man for thousands of years, it wasn’t until 1964 that the actual chemical structure of the active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol — THC — was determined. That stimulated new research on the plant. 
At this laboratory, which began in 1968, we often investigate marijuana’s chemistry. We also have a farm where we grow cannabis for federally approved researchers. Our material is employed in clinical studies around the country, to see if the active ingredient in this plant is useful for pain, nausea, glaucoma, for AIDS patients and so on. For these tests, researchers need standardized material for cigarettes or THC pills. We grow the cannabis as contractors for the National Institute on Drug Abuse — NIDA. And the only researchers who can get our material are those with special permits from the Drug Enforcement Administration and NIDA. We have visitors at the building now and then who ask, “Oh, do you give samples?” We say, “No!”Q. WHY BOTHER CULTIVATING YOUR OWN MARIJUANA WHEN LAW ENFORCEMENT ORGANIZATIONS SEIZE BRICKS OF IT EVERY DAY?A. The most obvious reason is that with confiscated marijuana, you don’t really know what you have. When researchers are performing clinical tests, they must have standardized material that will be the same every time. And it must be safe. You certainly wouldn’t want to give a sick person something sprayed with pesticide or angel dust, substances we’ve detected in some illicit marijuana.When this project first started in the late 1960s, people thought, “Oh, we’ll get materials for testing after a big bust happens.” So the first batch was acquired that way. They made an extract out of the seized material, and it turned out to be contaminated with tung oil. That brought home the point: if you’re going to do clinical trials on humans, you’d better know what you’re using and where it came from. Hence, our farm.Another thing: pharmaceutical researchers are often looking at something they call “the dose response.” They want to know what happens to a patient smoking a marijuana cigarette with 1 percent THC versus 2 percent or 8 percent. Without standardized material, you can’t accurately test which produced the best or worst result. Q. ONE OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF AGRONOMY IS TO START WITH GOOD SEEDS. WHERE DO YOUR SEEDS COME FROM?A. That’s a very good question. Most of the illicit material in the 1960s came from Mexico. So, in collaboration with the D.E.A. and the Mexican government, we acquired those seeds. Later, we acquired others from Colombia, Thailand, Jamaica, India, Pakistan and places in the Middle East. That permitted us to study chemical and botanical differences. By 1976, we were growing about 96 different varieties.Interestingly, that led us to see that there was only one species of cannabis. It had always been thought that there were many. But you could see that the chemistry of this plant is the same qualitatively no matter where it comes from. What makes each different is the relative proportion of the different chemicals in there, which doesn’t make a different species. It’s really the same species, but different varieties of it. The different types of varieties hybridize very easily.Q. DOES THIS MEAN THAT ONE COULD MAKE GENETICALLY MODIFIED CANNABIS?A. Yes. Absolutely. That actually has been the trend over the years in the cultivation in the illicit market, and also in the legal market, where we are doing genetic selection, where we select specific materials that have the genes that produce higher levels of THC or some of the other ingredients.Q. SO OUT THERE IN RURAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, HAVE THEY BEEN IMPROVING THEIR CROPS WITH MODERN GENETICS?A. They have been doing genetic selection for years. You can see the potency keeps going up. In the 1970s, the seized marijuana had probably 1 percent or less of the active ingredient. Now, it’s about 8 percent, on the average. Q. HOW DID YOU COME TO YOUR UNUSUAL SPECIALTY?A. The honest truth is that it began out of necessity. In 1975, while I was in my last year of graduate school in natural products chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, the Lord provided me with twin daughters. My graduate student stipend was already over, and my adviser said, “You need to quickly find a job.”So he recommended me for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Mississippi’s Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. My first job here had to do with poison ivy. Then a better-paying position opened up at the Marijuana Project, and I moved to that. I liked the research, and I got on well with my supervisor and mentor, Dr. Carlton Turner, who later became the director of drug abuse policy in the Reagan White House. So, this work, it just happened. Q. DO YOUR NEIGHBORS EVER KID YOU ABOUT YOUR JOB?A. My daughters, when they were in grade school, the teachers would ask them, “What does your father do?” And they’d say, “He grows marijuana.” And the teachers’ eyes would grow wide. After a while, my daughters said: “He works at the University of Mississippi. He’s a professor.” Mahmoud A. ElSohly, 62, a research professor at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Mississippi, presides over a farm that grows nearly a hundred varieties of marijuana plants. As director of the Marijuana Project, he oversees the only federally approved marijuana plantation in the country. We spoke for two hours in September at his laboratory in Oxford, Miss., and later again by telephone. An edited version of the conversations follows.Complete Title: A Conversation With Mahmoud A. Elsohly - Growing Marijuana With Government Approval Newshawk: E_JohnsonSource: New York Times (NY)Author: Claudia DreifusPublished: December 23, 2008Copyright: 2008 The New York Times CompanyContact: letters nytimes.comWebsite: http://www.nytimes.com/Cannabis News Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on December 24, 2008 at 04:28:04 PT
Thank you, Josephlacerenza.
I guess what I'm thinking is that genetically "modified" is really genetically "altered"... which I guess, doesn't have too e the case.Several years ago I heard of someone combining strains to create a no cannabis odor cannabis... but of course it wasn't that popular, because people actually enjoy the odor. But it would be a handy thing in this atmosphere of criminality.Merry Christmas everyone, I've got to get back to work on the Christmas Eve feast.
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Comment #8 posted by josephlacerenza on December 23, 2008 at 13:17:56 PT
You are on the right path HOPE
I work with GMO's here at MSU. The just of your understanding is sufficient to bring up a point. One of the most commonly used methods of gene transformation is a bacteria that does so NATUARLLY. It splices in its genes into the host cells genome i.e. the plant. Not to mention another NATURAL gene transformer are the viruses. Scientist argue that a good portion of the human genome is from insertions by long past retro viruses. Just a piece of fruit cake to chew on this holiday season. I must also confess I was of the same mind when it came to GMO's. They are transforming cannabis in Canada. One researcher was able to "TURN OFF" the THC gene not effecting the other 60 cannabiniods. Now why is that "hemp" plant illegal.
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on December 23, 2008 at 11:54:31 PT
Doesn't seem very "Scientific", when they
are trying to scare people with the term "Genetically modified". Which does scare me when it comes to what I eat or feed my family. Genetically "modified" is not the same at all as genetically "selected". Genetically "modified" is when they splice in a chicken or coyote gene, or something else, completely unnatural, in corn, or wheat, or something else, completely unrelated genetically, as I understand it. Genetic selection simply involves choosing preferable natural genetics... not "Modified" genetics... which is a whole different territory. An unnatural territory. "Q. DOES THIS MEAN THAT ONE COULD MAKE GENETICALLY MODIFIED CANNABIS?A. Yes. Absolutely. That actually has been the trend over the years in the cultivation in the illicit market, and also in the legal market, where we are doing genetic selection, where we select specific materials that have the genes that produce higher levels of THC or some of the other ingredients."As I understand it genetic MODIFICATION is not simple genetic SELECTION at all!A. Yes. Absolutely. "Crap! My BS detector is going off the scale.Am I wrong about the difference? I simply can't imagine a cannabist trying to splice an unrelated gene into cannabis for any reason.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on December 23, 2008 at 11:44:01 PT
Related Article From Scientic American
Feds' Pot Grower Talks Shop--But Who Can Get His Weed? December 23, 2008URL: http://drugsense.org/url/ZBuOv4dI
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Comment #5 posted by dongenero on December 23, 2008 at 09:39:18 PT
potency myths
They like to speak as though man just developed the psychoactive and pharmacological properties of cannabis over the last few decades. As though cannabis was nearly non-psycoactive, fibrous ditch weed until the 1970's. Well, that is pure bunk...........as is the 1% to 8% change in average potency....or is it 35%......pick your prohibitionist misinformation of choice.The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany."To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.
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Comment #4 posted by The GCW on December 23, 2008 at 06:12:11 PT
So...
So:If they produce 100 strains...And they can and do grow cannabis practally without THC at 1% up to 8% THC, And they supply 300 rolled joints per month to those few who are on the Gov. program...What do they give those people that receive those 300 pre rolled???Do they each receive a strain that helps their medical condition more than another strain???
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Comment #3 posted by Sinsemilla Jones on December 23, 2008 at 01:33:19 PT
GENETICALLY MODIFIED CANNABIS = BS
"Q. SO OUT THERE IN RURAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, HAVE THEY BEEN IMPROVING THEIR CROPS WITH MODERN GENETICS?A. They have been doing genetic selection for years. You can see the potency keeps going up...."SELECTIVE BREEDING has been going on for thousands of years!Cannabis had already been subject to "genetic selection" for potency for all that time, since it was one of the first plants ever cultivated.I guess "MODERN GENETICS" means crossing varieties from different countries, lol. But it's hard to believe that a few decades of this could improve the potency much over what was already achieved in several millennia.
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Comment #2 posted by Sinsemilla Jones on December 23, 2008 at 00:48:10 PT
Carlton Turner
"...I got on well with my supervisor and mentor, Dr. Carlton Turner..."Wasn't he the guy who asphyxiated monkeys with pot smoke in an effort to falsely show that cannabis causes brain damage?Some mentor.
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Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on December 22, 2008 at 20:44:31 PT
This repeated lie is so stressful
Can everyone please email this reporter and show her how the math works?Or even better -- Paul Armentano could demand equal time in an Op-Ed?
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