Phosphorus Poison

I wonder when folks are going to wake up to the dangers of consuming chemical fertilizers. Especially with some of the studies which have been done concerning using chemically processed phosphorus for growing tobacco and the incidence of lung cancer. It gives me the willies when I think about the big hydroponic outfits cranking out ‘medicinal’ cannabis for distribution at dispensaries and all those sick people sucking up radiation (I call it getting stoned on phosphorus). In virtually every one of our gardens, soil or hydro when we used high phosphorus inputs to pump up those buds, we also had to use some sort of fungicide. Tell me it ain’t so.

All you people buying cannabis at dispensaries ask if it has been grown organically and ask what their organic standards are. I know of one grower, growing in tiny 8 inch pots and claiming it to be organic just because that is what is marked on the bottles of fertilizers he is socking to the plants. The dispensary supports this just because the word organic is thrown around and resells the product as organic. BS is what it is….moneyass BS

Come on you big warehouse growers, become actually empathetic to your clientele, nevermind the lip service. At least begin exploring using true organic hydroponic techniques if that is your method. Aquaponics works great and recently there have been some successes using ACT with hydroponics. Try to lessen the poison.
[Please notice that I did not say shame on you; you money gluttonous hogs]

I have attached one paper in support. There are many more papers I could not access. Perhaps a university student might contribute.

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html
http://www.acsa.net/HealthAlert/radioactive_tobacco.html
http://www.webspawner.com/users/radioactivefood

Are you saying that there is a dangerous build up of chemical fertilizers in properly flushed plants?

socialist said:

Are you saying that there is a dangerous build up of chemical fertilizers in properly flushed plants?

Click to expand...

I dont think an overfert/dangerous build up can be flushed

socialist said:

Are you saying that there is a dangerous build up of chemical fertilizers in properly flushed plants?

Click to expand...

Properly.... as in regular water feedings in soil or soilless for 2-3 weeks? OR, plain water in hydro for 2-3 weeks? Yes... you can still have excessive nutes in your end product. Labs confirm this.

Flushed as in drowned for a week or to on a regular basis? Please don't do this. That's NEVER a good idea except in an emergency when you really screw up. Not at harvest time.

Cannabis holds onto nutes REALLY well. Best to cut out Nitrogen and Calcium a few weeks BEFORE switching to plain water for the last 2-3 weeks.

Stay Safe!

interesting subject, i always hopped that by paying a good price for nutrients i insure that i don't get radio active phosphorus in my bottles of nutes. but yeah pushing the buds with ferts like crazy all the way through, will not be flushed in a few days. will always taste less good then not over ferted plants harvested when they have converted all the nutrients in to sugars etc.

It would be interesting for someone (lab) to do a study specific to cannabis. One attribute shared by tobacco and cannabis is that the 'psychoactive/medicinal' compounds are stored or most prevalent in the trichomes. In the tobacco plant, this is where the stores of 'radiation' from phosphate fertilizers has been accumulated. This is what worries me. There is always a possibility that these effects are exacerbated in soil and there may not be such a high incidence in water based growing. The reason for this speculation is two-fold. In soil growing there is sometimes dust stirred which could cling to trichomes and in hydroponics there is less liklihood of a build up in the growing media.

However, this advantage may be lost with efforts to gain higher yields with increased levels of phosphorus.

Thank you for not dismissing this issue lightly.

Have access to some data bases...if you cared to direct me I'd be happy to look into some things to help out. Finals are next week, and honestly I don't know if I can access them during the winter break, but I'd try. I don't have the time to go blindly searching for things, but if there are cues you can help me narrow what you would specifically like to know, I'd peek for sure.

Once again, you are a shrewd dude MM. It sounds like it might be necessary to do some form of stringent outdoor vs. indoor test to eliminate/minimize other airborne exposure potential.

I'm not sure what we are discussing:

1. Too much phosphorous
2. Phosphorous that comes from a mineral salt as opposed to decomposing plant or animal matter.
3. Radioactivity in the phosphorous?

^^this

I must be brief. Jungle Dungles thank you. I'll line up some citations tomorrow. You are not so unshrewd yourself

Discussing the use of processed phosphorus, mostly from mined sources, usually processed with a form of acid.

Cool deal MM, I'll do the best I can to dig things up.

To others, just my 2 cents about the whole deal:

Very generally speaking, it is a concern over the effects of radioactive isotopes and heavy metals attached to molecules that an organism metaboliszes...these tend to stay in organisms, and are highly toxic doing such undesirable things as permanently deactivating enzymes that you need to lead a healthy life.

It's a bad, bad deal really, and we have been exposed to so much of this thanks to arguably irresponsible application of science since WWII that the potential cumulative effects even to this point are pretty god damn downright frightening when you really look into it.

If you really want to trip out about just how serious seemingly small things like this can be on an evolutionary scale, check out the relatively new science of epigenetics...extremely powerful stuff; still very new, but staggering in what has been discovered so far.

The bad news about stuff like this is that the damage it does is very real, very serious, and very permanent (at the moment). I can't speak to the specific phosphate concern, but the following is generalizing what we are coming to learn of the consequences of increased toxic chemical exposure.

Tiny molecules have the potential not only to cause you personal health risk, but also alter the way your genetic code is expressed (essetentially genes can be turned off, permanently). Not temporarily, but permanently....permanently...not just permanently to you, but permanently to your children....permanently to your children's children....permanently (at the moment) for the human species.....permanently not only to the human species, but all others who call Earth home.

Fortunately there is currently hope on the horizon that it may indeed be possible to reverse some of the convolusion of the code which has occurred; technology is reaching the point where it might just be able to catch up to the complexity we've created in what was once a simple and orderly, nearly perfectly functioning system. INTERESTINGLY, IN LABORATORY ANIMALS AT LEAST, THE AMAZING TECHNOLOGY THAT IS BEING USED IN PART TO REVERSE SOME OF THIS DAMAGE IS FOOD. That's simplifying a bit, but not grossly at all. Proper intake of the correct form of essential fatty acids has REVERSED OTHERWISE PERMANENT DEFECTIVE GENETIC TRAITS IN RATS. Nature's a brilliant design when you really step back to appreciate just how precisely all the pieces fit; until of course our ego causes us to think it can be made better. When you really take the time to look into the biochemical consequences to the human physiology of the industrialization of agriculture it is downright scary.

I know we all go to lengths for our plants that we would never go to for ourselves...in this particular case, the two are intertwined. That's what agriculture is supposed to be about. All of this shit that grows here is here to nourish us and the other inhabitants of this planet, and in turn be nourished by us. It's about sustaining HEALTH.

It's not about how your plants taste or how many hours of darkness to give them to stimulate CBD-42f. It's a whole lot bigger than that. Sorry for the diatribe, but it really is serious shit for the human race. No one really wants to hear that, but it's true.

So I dug one up from the Journal of Oncology. If you don't have much of an attention span stop here, but if this stuff grabs your attention there's some worthwhile stuff here.

It's long, so I'm just gonna paste some interesting parts. This one has an obvious slant to the anti-tobacco stance, but it gets the potential issue across pretty clearly. I'm not gonna say there aren't things about it that could be questioned, but for informational purposes only....

Abstract

The alpha-radioactive polonium 210 (Po-210) is one of the most powerful carcinogenic agents of tobacco smoke and is responsible for the histotype shift of lung cancer from squamous cell type to adenocarcinoma. According to several studies, the principal source of Po-210 is the fertilizers used in tobacco plants, which are rich in polyphosphates containing radio (Ra-226) and its decay products, lead 210 (Pb-210) and Po-210. Tobacco leaves accumulate Pb-210 and Po-210 through their trichomes, and Pb-210 decays into Po-210 over time. With the combustion of the cigarette smoke becomes radioactive and Pb-210 and Po-210 reach the bronchopulmonary apparatus, especially in bifurcations of segmental bronchi. In this place, combined with other agents, it will manifest its carcinogenic activity, especially in patients with compromised mucous-ciliary clearance. Various studies have confirmed that the radiological risk from Po-210 in a smoker of 20 cigarettes per day for a year is equivalent to the one deriving from 300 chest X-rays, with an autonomous oncogenic capability of 4 lung cancers per 10000 smokers. Po-210 can also be found in passive smoke, since part of Po-210 spreads in the surrounding environment during tobacco combustion. Tobacco manufacturers have been aware of the alpha-radioactivity presence in tobacco smoke since the sixties.

What Does the Smoker Smoke?

Even though the carcinogenetic mechanisms of tobacco smoke are not fully explored [45], only very few smokers and non-smokers know what they inhale. Tobacco smoke is a mixture of a corpuscular part (5%) and a gas phase (95%). The former, without water or nicotine, is constituted of tar. There are 0.3–3.3 billion particles per milliliter of cigarette smoke and more than 4000 compounds [46, 47], including more than 60 agents with at least sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in laboratory animals and 11 human carcinogens according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) [48, 49].
Besides well-known organ-specific carcinogenic substances, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 4-(methyl-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), 2-Naphthylaine, 4-aminobiphenyl, arsenic, and chromium, there is another one, which has recently been involved in the spy case of Litvinenko: Polonium 210 (Po-210).

Chemistry

Polonium, also called “radium F,” was discovered by Marie and Piere Curie in 1898 and was named after the home land of Curie-Sklodowska. For the discovery of radium and polonium Marie Curie received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 [50, 51]. The element was discovered while they were investigating the cause of pitchblende's persistent radioactivity, even after the removal of uranium and radium. Their work was remarkable, considering the means available in the late nineteen century and the fact that the element can be found in uranium ores at about 0.1 mg per ton.
Polonium is a fairly volatile metal, rarely found in nature in pitchblende containing rocks, and constitutes 2.1 × 10−4% of the Earth's crust [52]. The major resources of pitchblende are located in Canada, the US, Congo, and South Africa. Polonium has more than 30 radioisotopes, but Po-210 is the most dangerous and most frequent naturally occurring one [53]. This isotope has a half-life of 138.4 days, an effective biological half-time of 46 days [54], and can be created in the lab, when Bi-209 is bombarded with neutrons. It is a high energy α-particle emitter (5.3 MeV), but it can also emit gamma photons with energy 803 keV and emission probability of nearly 1 × 10−5 [55, 56]. It decays to stable Pb-206, and it has a melting point of 254°C and a boiling one of 962°C (for Pb-210 these temperatures are 327.5 and 1740°C resp.).

Toxicity

Polonium is a highly toxic element, with elevated specific radioactivity, and is dangerous to handle even in milligram amounts. The maximum allowable body burden for ingested Polonium is 1100 Bq, which is equivalent to a particle weighing only 6.6 × 10−6 μg [57].
Alpha rays, which are formed by helium 4 (He-4) nucleus, are the least penetrating type of radiation and they manage to travel only a few centimeters in air. They can be easily stopped by obstacles, such as a sheet of paper, and they can penetrate living tissues by only a few microns [55, 58, 59]. In fact, since they lose all of their energy after a short distance, they can be dangerous for tissues only when substances emitting alpha particles enter the organism by respiration or ingestion.
In addition, alpha rays are highly ionizing and, therefore, are particularly harmful for living tissues. 1 mg of polonium can emit as many alpha particles as 5 grams of radium. The impact on humans can be devastating, as it can cause considerable damage by causing cell death, promoting a massive, progressive, and rapid necrosis, and not allowing the organism enough time to replace the quantity of dead cells [57].

From Earth to Tobacco

Traces of Po-210 can be found in many plants and foods and consequently, in human tissues as well [60, 61]. The principal resource of natural Po-210 is food. Spencer et al. report that 77.3% of the daily Po-210 intake of an adult male comes from food, 4.7% from water, and 0.6% from air. Notably, inhaling cigarette smoke can supply much more Po-210 (17.4%) than water and air combined [62]. 50–90% of the ingested Po-210 will promptly leave the body in feces, but the remaining fraction enters the blood circulation [63].
The discovery of the presence of Po-210 in tobacco smoke dates back to the early sixties, thanks to the work of Turner et al. [60], Marsden and Collins [64], and Radford and Hunt [65]. In fact, Po-210 and its precursor, lead 210 (Pb-210), are present in tobacco plants [66], as they may be absorbed in various associated ways.
1. Through the plant's roots, directly from terrain that contains uranium [67–69].
2. Coating on leaves as a result of meteorological events, rain, snow, and environmental dust. In fact, Radon-222, a product of U-238 decay, is a noble and volatile gas that can partially escape from terrain into the atmosphere and create Pb-210 and Po-210. These are absorbed by atmospheric dust, creating the Aitken particles that consequently lie on the leaves. The numerous trichomes of tobacco plants resemble filamentous pores and are metal accumulators, particularly of Pb-210 and Po-210. The quantity of the latter will then increase, as there is further Pb-210 decay [70, 71]. Fleischer and Parungo confirmed experimentally that radon and lead decay products are highly concentrated in the trichomes of leaves [71]. Additionally, accumulation mechanisms of Pb-210 on trichomes of tobacco have been widely discussed and studied by Martell and Poet [72, 73] while Skwarzec et al. suggested that this is the principal way Po-210 enters tobacco plants [68].
3. On the other hand, the majority of authors, such as Singh and Nilekani, have identified the importance of the fertilizers employed [74]. Calcium polyphosphates fertilizers are enriched with radium, which is chemically similar to calcium, and derive from soil that contains pitchblende and apatite [67, 75]. Interestingly, according to several studies, Indian cigarettes, which are made of scarcely fertilized tobacco, are 6 to 15 times less radioactive compared to the American ones, which derive from intensively fertilized plants [74].

From Tobacco to Lungs

The journey of Po-210 and Pb-210 towards bronchopulmonary apparatus starts by lighting a cigarette. In this combustion chamber, tobacco burns, reaching 800–900°C when inhaling, and smoke is created, which is composed of a corpuscular (5%) and a gas phase (95%) [46]. Po-210 and Pb-210 are adsorbed in the insoluble particles of the corpuscular phase [65]. The latter is present in a high quantity and is a weak alpha (<1×10−5), gamma, beta, and X emitter. All these inhaled particles are deposited in the broncho-pulmonary apparatus and particularly in segmental bronchi bifurcations, due to ciliary action. According to measurements by Cohen et al., radium and thorium are also present in cigarettes; however, 99% of the radioactivity comes from Po-210 [75], which remains in the broncho-pulmonary apparatus after inhalation [76].
All these particles have a different “destiny” based on the efficacy of the mucous-ciliary clearance. This mechanical purification is reduced gradually in smokers with COPD, resulting in the accumulation of insoluble Pb-210 particles, which decay to Po-210 over time [70, 77]. In fact, the more severe COPD becomes, the greater the risk of radioactive load accumulation is [77].
Subsequently, radioactive particles reach various organs and tissues through pulmonary and systemic circulation and cause mutations of the genetic cellular structure, deviations of the standard cellular characteristics, accelerated ageing, and quicker death due to a wide range of diseases [78, 79]. In smokers, Po-210 levels are in fact significantly higher in blood (by 30%) [65, 80], urine (6-times higher) [81], liver, kidney, heart, and psoas muscle [82]. Little and McGandy estimated that Po-210 concentration in blood is 63.64 mBq/kg of blood in smokers and 28.12 mBq/kg of blood in non-smokers [83]. Notably, concentrations of Pb-210 and Po-210 in rib bones and alveolar lung tissues were two-times higher in ex-smokers compared to non-smokers, even a year after smoking cessation [66].
Polonium radiation in the bronchial epithelium depends not only on the particle concentration of these areas, but also on the time of their permanence. Half-life of polonium is 138.38 days and of lead 22 years, which decays afterwards into polonium. There is a significant cancer risk due to chronic exposure to low levels of insoluble alpha-emitting particles [84, 85], which are responsible for high radiation doses in small tissue areas particularly in the bifurcations (hot spots) [70]. This process is facilitated by the abovementioned impaired mucous-ciliary clearance of smokers. In fact, according to Auerbach et al. [86], metaplastic lesions are present in the ciliated epithelium of all heavy smokers [87, 88]. Po-210 of the insoluble particles becomes even more penetrative because of zones with damaged or scarcely ciliated epithelium, where mucous mainly stagnates [65, 89]. More and more studies suggest that smokers and ex-smokers with moderate to severe COPD have a higher incidence of lung cancer [77, 90–92].


P0-210 Quantity in Tobacco Smoke

Po-210 alpha radioactivity in tobacco smoke depends on several variables: geographic region of tobacco growth, storage time and modality, presence of a filter, its length and composition, and the way of smoking [85]. Furthermore, the associated risk of smoke derives not only from the quantity and quality of carcinogenic substances, but also from the scarce efficacy of filters, which fail to reduce their amount adequately. In fact, common filters, found in the cigarettes of commerce, are able to reduce Po-210 activity on average by 4.6% [93]. There is evidence that resin filters may reduce lung exposure to alpha radiation even more [94].
Radford and Hunt [65] and Mussalo-Rauhamaa and Jaakkola [95] reported that about 6.5% to 22% of the Po-201 contained in cigarettes was found in mainstream smoke. Other authors stated different percentages, ranging from 3.7% to 58% [96]. According to Parfenov, approximately 50% of a cigarette's Po-210 is transferred with the smoke, 35% remains in the stub, and 15% is found in the ash [97].
Professor Gattavecchia from the Complex Unit of the Institute of Chemical, Radiochemical, and Metallurgic Sciences of University of Bologna (SMETEC), in association with ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development) and the Italian Society of Tobaccology (SITAB), have conducted various studies on the alpha radioactivity of Po-210 in tobacco smoke. It has been confirmed that a cigarette with tobacco of Western origin emits 75 mBq of alpha radioactivity from Po-210, distributed in mainstream (5 mBq, 6.7%), sidestream (1.2 mBq, 1.6%), and ash (68.8 mBq, 91.7%) [97–100].

Mechanism of Action ***THIS METHYLATION THAT IS BEING TALKED ABOUT IS AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK > MAJOR POTENTIAL FOR DAMAGE WHICH WILL CARRY ON TO FUTURE GENERATIONS.

In a recent study, Prueitt et al. tried to explain the way alpha radiations affect DNA [120]. Ionizing radiation, including Po-210, could silence the tumor suppressor gene p16(INK4a) by promoter methylation. Inactivation of this gene was found in lung cancers of both smokers and radiation-exposed non-smoker workers. The authors concluded that such inactivation was shown to play a major role in carcinogenesis, but further studies could demonstrate the level of this role compared to other carcinogenic substances.

Source: Journal of Oncology, "Polonium and Lung Cancer." Jun 2011.

im probably growing cancer in my lungs from years of smoking, passive as a child, direct from preteen till recently..better pop those beans in the fridge..

is rock phosphate radioactive..? and are vegetables grown using the same shit as tobbacco?? hydro veg is ok??

Here's a little blurb from an extract from The Ecologist, which I do believe is just a magazine, but thought it was interesting for you British and Irish folks out there....I'm sure it applies pretty ubiquitously, but that's conjecture on MY part.

"Naturally occurring fluoride is commonly bound to calcium and is less bioavailable than the fluoride added by water companies to treat their customers, which comes from fluorosilicic acid. The fluorosilicic acid used in the UK and Ireland is believed to originate from phosphate fertiliseroperations in continental Europe. The UK Department of the Environment will not name the producers."

So there ya go.......IT'S ALL ABOUT BIOAVAILABILITY, IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, JUST EAT IT..............EAT IT!!!! Honestly, it has nothing to do with catering to the whims of corporations and conglomerates, nothing at all.

It's everywhere dude...you're bombarded with it from all angles, and industry will rest assured be more than happy to keep bombarding you with it until we all collectively unite as a planet and say FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKERS SIDEWAYS AND BACK AGAIN.

Here's one about microbe population responses to fertilizers in wheat fields. Kind of off topic, but I thought you might find something in it worthwhile MM.

fuck..

We'll see where this thread and further studies go.

I just have a hard time believing that a molecule of P that comes from an inorganic source and a molecule of P that comes from an organic source are any different. In fact, they have been shown to be exactly the same. If they were not identical, the plant could NEVER take it up via the root system nor could it assimilate the P in the growing cycle.

My guess would be the hundreds of other compounds found in cigarette smoke being the catalyst/culprit.

Given my doubts, I try to stay organic just for the fun of it.

I understand the cynicism. I picked the cancer one because everyone can relate easily to what that is and what the consequences of it are, even if they don't quite get what it really means biochemically. It's bigger than cancer.

Industrialized agriculture has done bad, bad, bad, bad things to what goes into our bodies for a long time. Broken record here, yes, but the cumulative effect of that is grossly, grossly, grossly, grossly unappreciated.

The fact is that we are manufacturing disease and sickness, as well as destroying ourselves as a people in quantitatively identifiable ways with modern agricultural practices.

I read MM's original post as imploring what is becoming a blossoming industry in many areas to attempt to be responsible in it's claims be "Medical". That might not be his intention, but that's the chord it struck with me, among others obviously.

This is shit everyone should know. Look at the situation. MM's a smart motherfucker. He states that he can't access this stuff in his original post. Nobody out there in your government or at your doctor's office is gonna let you in on this stuff, and in most cases, nobody in your local dispensary is gonna tell you about it unless it came out of a Jorge Cervantes or Ed Rosenthal book.

To be clear, I'm just as complict in all this as anyone else, and am merely trying to share some things here.

grape...it's not the source, it's the combustion...as far as my limited comrehension allows.

the fact the it accumulates in the bronchia due to cilial paralysis causes copd.