Genetic Modification of Cannabis

[Sam_Skunkman]

It is GM hemp not dope. As for the reference to THC lowered pollen, I am speculating. Think about the amount of dope grown in certain areas, dose those areas with no THC pollen for a few years and it would be bad news. Remember that the total weight of the all the indoor crops in a given year is miniscule compared to the amounts produced outdoors. The genepool could take hits with other GM methods but I don't want to describe any the bad guys have not thought about already. I will try and find a link to the paper and post it. It was a thesis.
-SamS

 

[Pops]

Let me state first of all that I am not a plant scientist; my background is in anthropology. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one time.

My concern is not what they can do with cannabis, but why they would do it. We anthropologists look at actions and motive. Both of the professional breeders in this thread, Sam and Chimera have aluded to similar things. Right now ,with the current attitudes towards marijuana and research coming from marijuana, the only people with an interest in genetically modified marijuana, whether mutagenic or transgenetic, is government and corporations that work for or cater to government.

Most of us know full well what a wonderfull plant this is and none of us know the full potential of the plant. We still don't understand the full potential of all the cannabinoid compounds in marijuana, esp. in the area of medicine. THC was the first cannabinoid to be synthesized, and now there are several others, some more potent even than THC. There is now a second one to be used to treat nausea in chemetherapy.

I think, at this point, the only worry that we have, is that government will authorize research in genetically modified marijuana, for all the wrong reasons. The DEA has, in several cases, killed medical research on marijuana, because the researchers came up with positive results that made a good case for the utilization of a plant that the government claims has no medical benefit.

Instead of worrying about possible destructive efforts of corporations engaged in genetic modifications, we need to continue to fight for the legalization of this plant so that medical science can study it the old-fashioned way, and we can reap the many benefits from that. If in the future, we find that certain cannabinoids have medicinal properties, we could use gene mapping to selectively breed varieties that would produce more of that cannabinoid.

By the way, I am very pleasantly suprised that a bunch of stoners can be this intelligent and thoughtful.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

http://scri.sari.ac.uk/publications/annualreports/01Indiv/11Hemp.pdf.

This is the short version, my paper is 200 pages.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15341030

Here is another done in Canada on the cell level I don't know if they grew out real plants or not.

-SamS

 

[Guest]

all your arguin prooves were not ready (and dont count me out )

maybe some people are but not All of us

i dream of a unified race... (humans)

when the common men can all agree were in a good place, but we cant.

the small numbers in this forum can represent the world in its entirety

and we simply dont all agree. untill we as a race are unified enough to agree, we arent ready

 

[suzycremecheese]

I can't vote. None of the options apply to me.

I choose not to eat GM foods or support companies doing GM for some of the reasons mentioned by Chimera and Sam.

However I believe the research could be incredibly valuable and wouldnt oppose the growing of these crops one day if done properly. That said, today, I totally and all but violently oppose their use and development the way they are doing it. Problems have already arisen from GM plants that are grown outdoors. For example in the NW United States they have found wild roundup resistant grasses that bred with the ones being used/ experimented w/ on golf courses.

They just arent doing it safely and they arent considering the irreversible impact that this technology may have on the environment in the long run. So I oppose the way its being done but I dont oppose responsible contained research.

As far as Cannabis goes, like Sam said, it could be great but the ones breeding Cannabis with the best labs are probably people that you dont want to be breeding Cannabis.

I can imagine a day when you could harvest the best genes from a variety of Cannabis varieties and construct your holy grail in very few generations. I might not see it while I'm still alive though and I'm OK with that. As far as I'm concerned traditional breeding is the fun part and the biotech stuff is just a little too indoorsy for me.