Important Dialogue about Cali Cannabis Legalization Bill.

[Bi0hazard]

I Just finished reading the Bill (Only 11 Pages). @ http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/ini...4_amdt_1-s.pdf

I feel that this bill is fine overall. It might be nice to have them clarify some things while adding other additions to help protect certain qualities of life for the people involved in the cannabis field. I hope people will at least still read the Legalization Bill - prior to conceiving some notion of what 'marijuana will or should entail' in this bill. The effects of passing laws on medically beneficial and non toxic plants can have a profound effect on our daily lives in positive or negative ways. This is why it's very important that we do not take any "Legalizing Bill" at face value. Kind of similar to the Patriot Act which actually removes many checks and balances of the Bill of Rights, and also uses the last 2 chapters to connect suspicion of terrorism to allow warrant-less drug busts and other civil and constitutional violations. Remember that anti drug commercial soon after 9/11, during the super bowl - Where the cops open up a car trunk full of marijuana and try to claim that Cannabis is used to fund many acts of terrorism. And that if you buy marijuana you are indirectly supporting terrorism. I'm sure people remember this, I was absolutely shocked at the propaganda techniques. Those who followed the CIA's Cocaine dealings during the Iran Contra, can feel the sense of hypocrisy in those ad campaigns even more.

The legalization bill currently put forth is actually not that bad, although rather vague at key points. This is the currently proposed bill and not the legalization people have to vote on ultimately. If it is not exactly what we want - the support for cannabis should be strong enough to get grass roots movements to help make this bill or future legalization what it should be. The bill actually does say it allows people to grow in their own house or even a rented house as long as it is for personal consumption. This means you do not have to grow in a commercial area for personal consumption. Pp. 5 Section A (ii). However, it does not say at all how much the limitations of the personal plant count or dry weight would be at all. So maybe it would be wise to make sure the bill mentions the limits or states that there are no limitations as long as it is strictly for personal use. The bill itself, although I'm not a lawyer - looks pretty straight forward. It does allow medical research and also allows Cali residents over 21 to grow their own personal cannabis and/or set up commercial grow ops for sale on the market.

One of the big issues to look out for - and maybe add to Bill itself. Would be safeguards to protect smaller cannabis vendors coming into the business - from larger corporations trying to take over the game. There shouldn't be hegemonic bullying of vendors and breeders - or creating too big a monopoly. Through competition with big corporations who will attempt to cash in - to externalize their costs as much as possible with usual adverse effects on people the systems are setup to help. It also could remove lots of health liabilities concerning the quality of the herb - that many corporations have been caught doing in order to save costs on production and processing. I think its crucial that we should setup laws that support as many dispensaries and independent vendors starting up in order to create a genuine and supportive community of business that can push other vendors and breeders to produce the best cannabis they can, as their ultimate goal of competition. Rather than being absorbed by larger corps or having to sacrifice care and quality in order to compete with undercut prices caused by corporate externalizing of costs at the customers expense.

A contrasting example is big corporations bullying mom and pop shops out of business like Walmart did in many areas of sales. I think monopolies of this sort would be very detrimental to the cannabis community. A corporation's main motive is short term maximization of profit - once the market is dominated, who would really be able to hold them accountable to the level of care put into their fine nug. I'm afraid a lot of movement in industry to compete with others would systematically push capitalistic motives away from the level of care, detail and general love for growing the most cared after cannabis- that so many breeders and growers share a passion for. An example would be the level of mass produced meats vs organic food. The main industries stuff animals in cages their whole lives so they are unable to move for the most production - regardless of the effects of the animals living in their own filth. I'm not some vegan/vegetarian activist or anything - I just think its a good example to show the way corporations will push aside the quality life of what is being sold and its effects on the customers. Simply because of a systematic goal of the biggest productions and turn overs possible. Also I highly recommend adding sections that would prevent the ability for anyone to create genetic patents on the present and future strains like they already have done with Fruits and Vegetables! This includes protecting seeds and clones from intellectual copy write infringement.

85% of the vegetables, fruits, grains and seeds used by US farmers are genetically modified seeds - which means the corporations have intellectual property rights to them. They will not let Farmers REPLANT seeds from their crops. THEY CAN GET SUED! How messed is that for future self sustainability? How can you make farmers throw away their seeds and instead have to buy more seeds from the corporations at full price each season? Imagine a company owning the rights to "Sour Diesel" and choosing who could breed or make clones with it or not - while being able to sue people who do it anyways.

So, basically in closing - we should make sure that we are able to freely grow, breed, and trade genetics to allow the future possibilities of cannabis to avoid any limitations in its greatness - by acts of bureaucratically systematic greed. What else do you expect by a constant need for corporations to maximize its short term, not long term, profits for shareholders. Rather than serving the people in need of cannabis, and the social and medical roots that nurtured its vision.

The cannabis community strives on the openness and caring nature of its origins. Such as giving and trading clones that people feel would be most helpful to others, while encouraging breeding of fine tuned strains to target specific conditions. Where the genetic origin and breeders used in the crosses are made public - whats the harm. Especially if it allows people to merge strains they feel would work great for them.

Do we want cannabis to be a genetic frontier of corporations battles attempting to buy out patents to every strain we know and sue people who are not authorized to breed with it? I hope not. This would severely limit the vast possibilities of future breeding project's - and remove the amazing creativity and thought many breeders have put into their breakthroughs.

We should always keep it open to grow, exchange, reproduce cannabis - otherwise the current beauty of the cannabis community could become very contrived and not foremost in the peoples interest.

BTW: I had a very focused state of concentration writing this on some of Swerve's Chem Valley Kush (Chem D x OG Kush II) I'm quite impressed.

 

[dagnabit]

as is being done with our med bill in michigan this year...

first you pass anything you can then you begin the process of amending it to get it right.
kinda like getting your grow dialed in..

you got to get the seed in the ground before you can grow

 

[Tony Aroma]

85% of the vegetables, fruits, grains and seeds used by US farmers are genetically modified seeds - which means the corporations have intellectual property rights to them. They will not let Farmers REPLANT seeds from their crops. THEY CAN GET SUED! How messed is that for future self sustainability? How can you make farmers throw away their seeds and instead have to buy more seeds from the corporations at full price each season? Imagine a company owning the rights to "Sour Diesel" and choosing who could breed with it or not - while being able to sue people who do it anyways.

Nice commentary.

While that may be true for farmers, it's not necessarily true for the rest of us. If I grow something in my garden and then plant the seeds I produced next season, I doubt any big corporation is going to sue me. While this sort of thing may affect big commercial growers, I think us hobbyists will be able to continue to do our thing.

And you can't patent something that's already in existence. It has to be something you create (or buy from someone who created it). So I'd expect most of the strains available today will be safe. And while the big corps may get involved in breeding and creating new strains, I think there will still be the small breeders. Cannabis isn't like corn. How many small-time corn breeders do you think there are? I think it will be more like the beer industry. You have a few big companies but also lots of smaller microbreweries. I think there's plenty of room in the cannabis market for both. If anything, I'd predict that small-time cannabis breeders will become more plentiful to accommodate the growing connoisseur market.

 

[Bi0hazard]

Tony Aroma,

Thanks for the reply. The genetic patient suing generally happens with the bigger corporations, but they have been known to sue smaller farmers to push them to their genetically patented seeds.

You are right they cannot directly patent something that has already been around. However, just like Corn, Wheat etc which have all been around. What the corporations did was genetically modify a strain already around to have greater mold resistance and/or production.

As soon as any company makes a modification to the genetics, it becomes their intellectual property - which means it can patented at that point. It is completely possible to happen to the cannabis community, we should at least write laws against it with the legalization process if possible.Also in the 30s-70 there were many small farm growers of corn and other crops. It was specific laws passed by the corporations that allowed them to be monopolized, forced to follow bigger corporate procedures to sell or grow their products. Just like in 1996 the telecommunication act allowed all the top radio companies to put a station in every town and easily knock the competitors out of business. The number of individually owned radio stations went from 800+ to 6-8 stations. And we wonder why the art of music has turned into image and you hear the same song over and over on the majority of the non college based stations. I'm just trying to point out how important it is to protect against these threats to the purity and initial vision of the cannabis community and its medical benefits. We should set out to prevent monopoly nurturing laws that could be created in the future to take the production and access to genetics out of the peoples hands - where they could be sued while being regulated in really constricting ways.

I would recommend watching the video "food inc" by the maker of Fast Food Nation. The corporations bullied those who didn't use their genetically modified seeds - and then cut those who avoided using them out of the loop of the main companies who make seeds.

Just a serious concern to make sure cannabis is kept free for growing, breeding, and trading.

Bi0hazard

 

[ChronJohn]

However, it does not say at all how much the limitations of the personal plant count or dry weight would be at all

no limitation on plant count, merely that it has to be within the confines of a 5x5 area, which local governments can expand upon if they want to. and you are free from arrest for possessing an oz of dried cannabis; local governments are also permitted to raise this limit as well. your harvested plants need to be kept within the 5x5 area lest they be applied to your dry weight, at least that's what my reading made it sound like. I anticipate that a lot of localities will immediately up the limits, especially counties that traditionally have had high plant count/dry weight limits. As for your fears concerning genetic monopolization, they are valid however remember that all it takes is crossing a male plant with a female plant, and even if they are the same strain will yield a completely different DNA sequence. So while the corps could try and tie down a certain clone, they will never tie down a certain strain. At least that's how my understanding goes. cheers!

 

[Bi0hazard]

Great input ChronJohn.

That sounds reasonable with the limitation being to the growing area. And I guess one could store their bud within that area in a compartment or something to prevent it from being part of their dry weight. I'm sure some states will up the space and amount allowed to posses, and hopefully newer states will follow - so that sounds good.

I wonder what happens with the weigh in a drying location, since it most likely couldn't and wouldn't be in the grow area itself. And obviously the amount of yield someone could get from a 5x5 room is more than 1oz dried.

Ya, I guess people could remake strains by doing the crossing again - but that still could limit peoples access to some of the most brilliant breeding expressions. And force everyone to make knock offs or look for the pheno themselves by seed. I agree that clones could very easily fall under the genetic monopolization, and connecting back to my last point could patent the best expressions/phenos and basically work against any notions of IBL breeding projects, as they would have to be patented at different steps along the way over and over. This would push people including amateurs to continuously attempt knock offs in order to create new un-patented versions for breeding. It just doesn't seem like it would be nurturing to the progress and creativity of future breeding project's, which is a shame, given all that has been accomplished in even the past 10 years alone. A community which should be about creating the best expression and phenos of different strains to best suite the medical, psycho-active, and spiritual desires of growers and smokers alike.

Genetic patenting of cannabis would create lots of hurdles leading to a greater prevalence of genetic impurity and non-stable F2's in order to not get sued while breeding, as opposed to being able to freely distribute top clones that anyone can breed with, using the wide pallet of strains and phenos our cannabis generation has to work with; of course those not horded by the breeders (which I'm not going to really get into). This also ensures that the breeding projects are using stable cuts that people have lots of experience with rather than the genetic inferiority and amount of extra years of breeding to re-establish which F2's expressions are most stable in breeding. This is the whole beauty of being able to pass the genetic code to others with clones or S1's.

Just some concerns I have. =] But I really appreciate your feedback, I learned numerous things in your post.

 

[ChronJohn]

I personally think that only God (or whatever greater being, if there is one) should own a "patent" on nature. Unless a company literally builds a plants DNA from the "ground up" so to speak, they should not be able to patent something natural.
I know it seems like too simple a solution... but some bright young legislator could always just make a law stating that only names of strains, not the genetics of the strain itself, could be copyrighted (or patented.. whatever). I only have a very limited breeding knowledge so I don't know what else would need to be done (you seem like you have a better grasp on this aspect), but I'm sure when legalization passes and the flurry of regulating legislation goes through the Legislature, someone will put something forth addressing the issue. We just need to make sure it's cannabis friendly people and not someone from Monstanto I'm glad my post was helpful to you
"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Bi0hazard again"

 

[Bi0hazard]

make a law stating that only names of strains, not the genetics of the strain itself, could be copyrighted (or patented.. whatever). I only have a very limited breeding knowledge so I don't know what else would need to be done (you seem like you have a better grasp on this aspect), but I'm sure when legalization passes and the flurry of regulating legislation goes through the Legislature, someone will put something forth addressing the issue. We just need to make sure it's cannabis friendly people and not someone from Monstanto

Hey, I'm all for that. As long as the copyrighting of names doesn't prevent someone from making a cross and letting the public know what strains went into it.

We always have to take an offensive stance in setting up laws to prevent these types of changes and ownership that goes along with opening it up widely to multi-national corporations. If we end needing to be defensive, it could already be too late. I say, make this well know to those working and supporting the bill to get it worked in. Or definitely be a following law that is passed very soon after. Although the sooner the better, because I don't doubt that some businesses are already contemplating it, like what has been going on with the food industry over the past 7 years. Many agricultural business are knowledgeable of this genetic patenting opportunity - especially concerning plants linked to medicine.

It's very important that we keep the ability to trade clones and freely breed cannabis.

 

[Bi0hazard]

Just trying to point out how important it is to protect against these threats to the purity and initial vision of the cannabis community and its medical benefits. We should set out to prevent laws that nurture monopolization that in the future could take away the ability for smaller farmers to compete in the market, severely limit access to genetics - putting it out of the peoples hands. We must always be on the offensive in making sure the laws protect the long-term sustainability of small farmers and breeders. Because it shouldn't all be about profit, and people will be sacrificing the artificial margin of profit they currently get to go legal, we don't want to cut those people out, just like others who are trying to get into the field. It's so important to protect Small businesses in the cannabis field if we want the right to a wage that can sustain decent living. Basically setting up a system meant to protect people and the benefits of cannabis from hegemonic monopolized Profit, especially from patenting genetics. Laws that initially work to the favor of small businesses in the cannabis community should be setup rather than those that make growers compete and exploit themselves for a corporation to make it. If the cannabis community ever finds itself on the defensive - it may be a much worse position than proactively going about preventing it in the first place.