Gmo Cannabis Cup

[shishka]

Monsanto has cannabis labs working with the makers of Sativex. THC, CBD, GURT, T-GURT, V-GURT are the main focus of the efforts.

 

GURT=Genetic Use Restriction Technology=restricting the use of genetically modified plants by causing second generation seeds to be sterile=Terminator Seeds

T-GURT=modifies a crop in such a way that the genetic enhancement engineered into the crop does not function until the crop plant is treated with a chemical that is sold by the biotechnology company.

V-GURT=1.Variety-level Genetic Use Restriction Technologies=produces sterile seeds, so the seed from this crop could not be used as seeds, but only for sale as food

 

those are the commercial interests in cannabis technologies.

Personal interests may include tissue culture production, chromosome manipulation, pest interference, color, height, appearances, anomalies, etc. these tasks can and are being performed on cannabis around the world in closets and basements.

 

Recall a plant indoors will be genetically modified through generations of cloning and flowering. Each may evolve into a more suitable plant for it's environment with each generation of duplication.

Breeding, insertion of agribac, alien proteins, gold, will forever change a plant and its downline. I've seen it, often. Scientists tell you of the million dollar equipment needed and all of the specialized training, in a similar way that the gas station attendant is sure the bosses gas station business would fail if it were not for them. Nothing against the gas jockey of course, tht happens to be one some of the best fun on the job I ever had ! When I quit, the station closed.....Lol

 

Sativex cannabis labs are run by David Watson a.k.a. Sam the Skunkman.

 

Here is the latest on what David has to say about Monsanto/GMO cannabis. This was on 6/09/14

 

Anyone that thinks Monsanto is making GMO weed needs to stop smoking so much, or maybe smoke a lot more until you come to your senses.

There is no GMO Cannabis, none has ever been found for sale, if you think Monsanto needs the problems connected with a GMO Cannabis drug creation and sales you might want to reconsider your opinion.

Maybe if enough people believe it, it will happen?

I am not say Monsanto is not a bunch of criminals, they are. But GMO Cannabis?????

-SamS

 

 

You can find the thread here.

 

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=287199

[Restorium2]

GMO corn produces bacillus thuringiensis as it grows. It's a pesticide. That was the GMO 'trick' with corn. There's research going on right now on developing a form of bacillus thuringiensis that kills mites. I'll let you decide waz ^ with dat Skunkman. Corn doesn't have a mite problem.

[imiubu]

.

Edited May 24, 2015 by imiubu

[trichcycler]

you guys/gals are keener than the average, and I'm glad to sense that here.

[trichcycler]

ahh, smells like a skunk to me.

sorry for the few words, but had to be said;

PROPOSITION 19, MONSANTO, AND GMO TERMINATOR CANNABIS



PROPOSITION 19, MONSANTO, AND GMO TERMINATOR CANNABIS
Researched and written by Conrad Justice Kiczenski - September, 2010

An article by D.M. Murdock written in August 2010 and entitled “Why hemp could save the world” states:

“Hemps prohibition has led to untold suffering around the globe. If we—the global human population—had been able to grow the miracle plant hemp (Cannabis genus) locally and to use it for local industries and businesses, including and especially for fuel, we would never have needed to be addicted to oil, for one, an addiction that is at the root of much misery. We would never have allowed ourselves to be lorded over by international oil-mongers whose crimes against humanity have become legion, including wholesale invasion of other lands and slaughter of countless people.”

“None of this oil-related horror—along with the deplorable degradation of the environment globally—would have occurred if hemp had not been prohibited but had been used wisely and intelligently as a major foundation of human society. Indeed, hemp-based economies could still save the human world, while hemp planting could go a massively long way in rescuing the natural world as well.”

“It is said that hemp has up to 50,000 uses, from fiber to fuel to food, but I'll just provide a taste here:”

“In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food, fuel, and medical purposes.”

“Hemp is one of the faster growing biomasses known, producing up to 25 tons of dry matter per hectare per year, and one of the earliest domesticated plants known. “

“One highly important use of hemp has been in detoxifying nuclear waste, as demonstrated by experiments in the Ukraine, for example, on the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Moreover, hemp fuel could actually replace the dangerous and costly nuclear power industry.”SEE: http://www.examiner.com/freethought-in-national/why-hemp-could-save-the-world

The agenda of the government in its policies against Cannabis have always been to deprive the people access to the plant, while maintaining control over it for the governments own self-interest. This self-interest extends to a multitude of industries including the prison and military industry, the petroleum, timber, cotton, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as the entirety of the banking and corporate establishment which has become empowered through disconnecting people from their one true source of independence and sustenance, the Earth. Cannabis prohibition has served to redirect human evolution from that of a decentralized agrarian lifestyle and natural economy, to a centralized petro-chemical military dictatorship controlled through the artificial economic will of private banks and other trans-national corporate interests.

The next stage in continuing this control, is in the regulation, licensing and taxation of Cannabis cultivation and use through the only practical means available to the corporate system, which is through genetic engineering and patenting of the Cannabis genome.

To achieve this end, the foundation is already being laid in the form of California’s upcoming initiative on the 2010 ballot. This initiative is called Proposition 19: The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010.

The leading advocate for Proposition 19 is the organization known as the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). The DPA is the leading organization spearheading the reform of Cannabis policies in the United States, and has been made up of some of the most powerful and influential characters in today’s global petro-bio-chemical-military-banking-industrial complex.

Some of the Directors of DPA include the following:

Paul Adolph Volcker is an Honorary Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) whose career is closely associated with that of the Federal Reserve Bank. He was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975-1979, governing board member of the Federal Reserve in 1979, and was Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979-1987.

Volcker is believed to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury from 1969-1974 before his time with the Federal Reserve. Volcker is chairman of Wolfensohn & Co. and has ties to Chase Manhattan Bank. He is also linked to the Brookings Institute, as well as being an Honorary Trustee at the Aspen Institute, chairman of the Group of 30, and on the board of the Institute for International Economics.

Frank Charles Carlucci III is an Honorary Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since at least 1995. His government service included positions as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1980-1982 and Deputy Director of the CIA from 1978-1980.

Carlucci is a director on United Defense Industries (the United States' largest defense contractor), which is owned by the Carlyle Group, a merchant bank based in Washington, D.C., of which Carlucci is the chairman. Carlucci joined Carlyle in 1989.

Before returning to Government service, Carlucci was Chairman and CEO of Sears World Trade, a business he joined in 1983. He was President Ronald Reagan's National Security Advisor in 1987 and Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1988.

Nicholas Katzenbach is an Honorary Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and became General Counsel of the IBM Corporation from 1969 until 1986.

Mathilde Krim is a standing Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and was a Trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1980.

George Soros is a standing Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and is Chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros was among the highest paid hedge fund managers in 2009, taking home about $3.3 billion. At the end of 2009, he owned about $6.95 billion distributed among 697 stocks.

Soros’ top 5 investment shareholdings are in gold, Petrobras petroleum company, Hess Corp petroleum company, Monsanto corporation, Citigroup Inc., and Suncor Energy Inc.(petroleum company).

That’s right, George Soros, who is famous for being one of the most powerful and influential persons in world economics and whose speculations alone are said to have ‘broke the Bank of England‘, is one of the key directors for the organization that is leading the charge to regulate, control and tax Cannabis in California. All the while George Soros is one of the major shareholders in the worlds largest GM Seed bio-technology corporation known as Monsanto.

The Monsanto corporation brought you things like Agent Orange, Terminator Seeds, Monsantos Round-up ready Herbicide, and Genetically Modified and Patented Organisms made from Soybean, Corn, and Cotton to name a few. Genetically engineered crops entered the market in 1996 and to this day around 90% of all Soy, Corn, and Cotton grown in the U.S. have been Genetically Engineered and patented by a handful of bio-chemical corporations, with Monsanto owning 90% of all GMO patents.

The value of the Cannabis plant as an industry, without factoring in the value of Cannabis as a food or medicine, was estimated to be in the billions in 1938 by an article published by Popular Mechanics Magazine at that time, so its no wonder why one of Monsanto’s major shareholders would have in interest in advocating for one of the main tenants of prop 19, which is to “Make cannabis available for scientific, medical, industrial, and research purposes” and to “adopt a statewide regulatory system for a commercial cannabis industry”. Prop 19 is doing nothing less then opening the floodgates for Monsanto and other petro-chemical, GMO seed and pharmaceutical corporations to commercialize, regulate, control and tax Cannabis through genetic engineering, patenting and licensing.

Monsanto and the Drug Policy Alliance are not the only entities leading the charge to regulate Cannabis through genetic engineering. As published in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany, Researchers from the College of Biological Science of the University of Minnesota have identified the genes in the Cannabis plant that produce tetra-hydro-cannabinol (THC), claiming in a press release that it is “a first step toward engineering a drug-free Cannabis plant”. George Weiblen, an associate professor of plant biology and a co-author of the study, said “Cannabis genetics can contribute to better agriculture, medicine, and drug enforcement”.

George Weiblen conducts his research under a permit granted by the DEA to import Cannabis from outside of the U.S. The two sources from which these imports come from are the Kenex corporation based in Ontario Canada and the HortaPharm corporation based in Amsterdam. These two corporations are two of the very few entities which have acquired a DEA permit to import Cannabis into the United States. The history and role of these corporations illustrate the potential of Genetic Engineering in the global Cannabis market.

Kenex corporation initiated its research program on industrial hemp in 1995 in cooperation with Ridgetown College of University of Guelph in Ontario. A research license was granted by Health Canada to proceed with the program. The scope of the project was expanded in 1996 making it the largest hemp research project in Canada.

It is interesting to note that Kenex’s research program on hemp was initiated at the University of Guelph, which is also home to 24 ag-biotech research facilities, and is heavily funded by the ag-biotech industry, including research funds from Monsanto corporation, Bayor Incorporated, Dupont, Syngenta and Dow Chemical corporation to name a few.

The University of Guelph Impact Study in 2007 states:
“Multi-national companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayor Crop Science, and Semex have set up in Guelph because of the ability to closely interact with research and the ease of access to human, capital, and government resources, as well as the ability to attract investment.”

The University of Guelph has recently genetically engineered and patented the genome of a pig, which they have trademarked the EnviroPig. The University of Guelph has also recently partnered with the Monsanto corporation to genetically engineer a Glyphosate-resistant ragweed, and has contributed significant research and development into genetically engineering strains of Soybean crops. Some of the first Genetically Engineered Canadian bred Soybeans were developed at the University of Guelph, including the GMO Soybean strain called ’OAC Bayfield’. GE Soybean research at the University of Guelph has been vitally important to the growth of the GMO Soybean industry.

On January 2, 2003, the Guelph Mercury reported the following:

“Since the Canadian hemp ban was lifted in 1998, researcher Peter Dragla of the University of Guelph's Ridgetown College has been selecting and breeding hemp plants to meet industry needs. Now, besides working on varieties with lower levels of tetra-hydro-cannabinol (THC)… he's striving to develop hemp breeds with larger seeds.”

After Kenex corporations Hemp industry was born in a partnership with the Ridgetown college of the University of Guelph, Kenex became Canada’s largest Hemp producer and Supplies Hempseeds for food to companies like Nutiva, based in California.

One of the only other international companies which has acquired a permit to import Cannabis into the U.S. from the DEA is known as the HortaPharm R&D company based out of Amsterdam.

HortaPharm was founded in the late 1990’s by a man named David Watson.

David Watson is credited for developing some of the most widely used Cannabis strains in the world, including his famous strain called Skunk #1 which was imported and used in George Weiblens research to develop GE Cannabis strains at the University of Minnesota.

An article from: http://www.cannabisfarmer.com/web/node/39 reports the following on Mr. David Watson:

“Are your expensive Dutch female (Cannabis) seeds hard to clone, or when you try to breed them, all you get are hermaphrodites?”

“Thank Dr Frankenbeanstein, aka the Skunkman, whose real name is David Watson.”

“At a 1997 Vancouver Hemp conference, Watson spoke of his research. His main focus was to stop growers from cloning nor being able to create any seeds from strains being bred in Amsterdam. The funding for this research came partially from the Dutch Government, the rest from the DEA. Watson had been busted for growing in Santa Cruz California on March-20-1985 and resurfaced in Amsterdam to start his seed company Cultivator’s Choice. DEA supported the Watsons application for a license to grow for research in Holland, even though they should have been extraditing him back to Cali for his 1985 Santa Cruz grow bust! DEA endorsement was so strong that he was the first to be granted a permit in Holland when several universities and domestic research groups with PHD’s and legitimate reasons for research were denied! The Dutch government even supplied three greenhouses for Watson to do his heinous experiments, while normal Dutch growers lost all of their equipment and had to serve murder-like sentences at that time! Dutch seed companies have become the Monsanto of the cannabis seed industry, and hope to make us all seed junkies at $20 a seed.!”

“The license gave Watson control over what researchers are allowed access to pedigreed seeds of predictable quality! The object is to patent up every possible combination of cannabinoids with efficacy for every possible disease they can treat, and every possible genetic sequence! Once ready to make the move, they will shut down every medical cannabis grower for patent fraud”

“Monsanto terminator technology is being applied to Cannabis by (David Watson) at Hortapharm in Holland.”
SEE: http://www.cannabisfarmer.com/web/node/39

The following article published in the UK Independent on September 27, 1998, Interviewed Mr. Watson on the intent of his research in Cannabis with his company HortaPharm:

"It looks like dope, but really it's hope," explains David Watson. What he means is that many of these plants have been specifically bred not to produce an intoxicating resin or hashish. Indeed, HortaPharm hopes to thwart the aims of the average recreational user.”

The team is already close to finding their own commercial Holy Grail - seeds that will produce a one-off, female, seedless crop of plants with no psychotropic effects for the consumer. Why, you might ask, would they want to do that?

HortaPharm is only interested in developing female plants that are sterile, but this is not just to protect their genetic copyright. "If a plant is not kept busy producing seeds, all its energy can go into resin production," says Watsons Dutch colleague and biochemist Etienne de Meijer.

Watson believes the bright future of (Cannabis) is contained in the greenhouses of HortaPharm and GW Pharmaceuticals.

At his Amsterdam glasshouses, he nods conspiratorially at the healthy- looking garden produce. "Don't say anything yet, but we are also working on putting THC into tomatoes," he confides. Then he cackles reassuringly: "Only kidding!"
SEE: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/cannabis-a-year-that-changed-minds-1200871.html

David Watson has stated "HortaPharm has built up over many years the most extensive 'Living Library' of Medicinal Cannabis varieties in the world”.

In July 1998, Speaking at the International Cannabinoid Research Society conference in Montpellier, Dr Geoffrey W Guy, Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, said that HortaPharm will provide GW with exclusive access to its entire range of cannabis varieties for the development of medicines. The worldwide rights acquired by GW for an undisclosed sum cover varieties grown to date with certain exceptions and all varieties to be bred in the future. Plant registrations arising from the Dutch breeding program will be owned by GW pharmaceutical.

Under the agreement GW Pharma will be responsible for the development of specific drug delivery technologies to administer the pharmaceutical grade medicinal cannabis. This work will include a vaporizer for which HortaPharm has a patent pending.

In addition GW Pharma will fund HortaPharm's botanical research and HortaPharm scientists will
assist in the UK Glasshouse propagation, cloning and cultivation program.

David Watson, CEO of HortaPharm has stated “As soon as Dr Guy's clinical research indicates the exact desired composition our scientists can breed and register new medicinal varieties".

An article published by Cannabis Culture Magazine in May 2002, states:

“GW's miracle pot may soon be among the first cannabis plants ever patented. Although some industrial hemp genetics have been copyrighted as intellectual property, Guy is seeking to register marijuana varietals distinguished by specific morphological characteristics, such as color, leaf size and shape, and smell.”

“According to preliminary information provided exclusively to Cannabis Culture, GW's medical devices will revolutionize the way cannabis is ingested. Cannabis extracts blended in precise ratios will be packaged in a "canister" that joins to an electromechanical device that delivers controlled aerosolized doses of plant-derived cannabinoids without delivering harmful combustion by-products.”

“The canisters and delivery devices will be dispensed by pharmacists, and closely monitored by pharmacists, doctors, and GW itself.”

“"Pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars researching and producing medicines, but as soon as those medicines are given to patients, they can be improperly used," Guy explains. "Patients might use too much, too little, or they might divert their medications to other people. For medications like cannabis that are controlled substances, it's essential that medical personnel be able to monitor dosage patterns. Our devices are like a digital camera that records details of time, date and other particulars every time it is used."“

“"Physicians will be able to monitor patient usage remotely," continued Guy. "People won't be able to tamper with our devices, even though they are portable and easy to use. You'd need a metal saw or a blowtorch to get into one of them. These controls answer concerns of those who worry that our extracts will be used inappropriately. And, these devices can be adapted for other medicines, ensuring patient safety and medical efficacy."“

“Dr Guy and his representatives have engaged in high level discussions with the DEA, FDA, the Office for National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) and senior state officials in California and Maine.”

“"We've made some progress in the US," Guy says. "We've commenced pre-clinical research in laboratories and other research in a university. This research is aimed at cell protection properties, general pharmacology, and the enhancement of effects afforded by beneficial synergy created when cannabinoids are blended together rather than isolated. The DEA has approved importation of our extracts into the US. They haven't said no to us on anything we've asked so far. They are playing it by the book. We look forward to continued progress."“

“"GW occupies a lead position world-wide," concludes Guy. "We are uniquely placed to become the first company to achieve regulatory approval for prescription cannabis-based medicines."“
SEE: http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/2400.html

In an interview with Cannabis Culture Magazine, the Chairman of GW Pharma Dr. Geoffrey Guy said “We deserve to make a fair return on our investment, and that's why we pursued patents for our plants, extracts, processes, and delivery devices."

In 2009 in Canada, GW Pharma has succeeded in "artificially manipulating" and Patenting a “Novel Reference Cannabis Plant” with a "knock out gene" that uses “monogenic mutation" to "block the cannabinoid biosynthesis in Cannabis sativa”. This technology is being used to artificially engineer the levels of medicinal compounds in the plant.
SEE: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090035396

In May of 2003, GW Pharma and Bayer Incorporated had reached a Marketing Agreement on Pioneering a New cannabis-based medicinal extract product called Sativex.

Bayer reportedly paid $60 Million to GW Pharma to obtain exclusive rights to market Sativex in the UK, And reportedly paid $14 Million for the marketing rights in Canada.

“Bayer corporation is also one of the largest biotechnology and GM producers in the world and has brought to market genetically engineered strains of rice, corn, rapeseed, and canola. Bayer is the world's leading pesticide manufacturer and the world's seventh largest seed company. Bayer CropScience is responsible for the majority of GM field trials in European countries. Bayer's GM crops are mostly "Liberty Link" - designed to be resistant to its "Liberty" herbicide. In 1925, Bayer was one of the chemical companies that merged to form the massive German conglomerate IG Farben, which was the largest single company in Germany and it became the single largest donor to Hitler's election campaign. After Hitler came to power, IG Farben worked in close collaboration with the Nazis, becoming the largest profiteer from the Second World War.”
SEE: http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/11153-bayer-a-history

“An examination of internal Bayer company documents by The New York Times reveals that the company was engaged in unsavory, probably criminal marketing practices. The documents reveal that Bayer continued to sell contaminated blood plasma causing thousands of hemophiliac patients to be infected with AIDS. The company continued to sell the contaminated blood in Asia for over a year when it had already introduced a safer, heated blood plasma version in the US and Europe in February 1984.”

“The documents examined by the Times provide evidence of unrestrained corrupt practices by a pharmaceutical industry giant. According to The Times, records suggest that the reason for continuing to sell an AIDS infected blood product, was to get rid of inventory and "the company hoped to preserve the profit margin from 'several large fixed-price contracts.'“”
SEE: http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/0503/22.php

In 2007 Monsanto partnered with the patent holder of Sativex, Bayer, in a long-term agreement to cross-license their technologies.

"According to chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience Dr Friedrich Berschauer the agreements are an important step for Bayer as they could significantly broaden the availability of its LibertyLink technology outside its core cotton and canola seed business."

""At the same time, the agreements enable us to facilitate the development and commercialization of new technology solutions in the future," he said."
SEE: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Monsanto-Bayer-team-up-on-herbicide-tolerance

While corporations like Bayer and GW Pharma are building patent monopolies over Cannabis strains, processes and medicinal compounds, an ongoing propaganda campaign in the U.S. continues to serve their Cannabis monopoly interests.

Before the reefer madness campaign of the 1930’s, relatively few peoples utilized the psychoactive properties of Cannabis through smoking in the U.S.. Hemp was outlawed in part because the white farmers of the 1930’s did not even know that the outlawing of the mysterious new menace called “Marijuana” was the same plant they were growing in their fields. Throughout history, this psychoactive knowledge of Cannabis has come and gone and those who have had a deep understanding of botany, especially of psychoactive plants were often accused of being either savages or witches. Reefer Madness not only created a hysteria against Cannabis, but it widely proliferated the knowledge of Cannabis’s psychoactive properties and attracted a new underground culture around the plant. This new culture has been heavily influenced by both the mainstream and the underground media.

For example, there are 60 different cannabinoids in the Cannabis plant. Many of which have been identified, genetically isolated and patented by both the U.S. government and other international companies for their medicinal properties. Though the underground and mainstream media in the U.S. around Cannabis tends to be exclusively focused on the psychoactive effect that is produced from the plants chemical compound known as THC. This has helped to create a culture of Cannabis plant breeders in the U.S. who produce strains with a very high yield of THC.

While THC has been conclusively shown by scientific studies done by the Medical College of Virginia, researchers from the University of Madrid, and researchers from the SETH group to contain definite cancer-destroying properties (SEE: http://www.globatron.org/contemporary-culture/thc-kills-brain-tumor-cells), the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research in 2006 also states that “A high dose of delta9-THC, the main Cannabis component, induces anxiety and psychotic-like symptoms in healthy volunteers.”. That same journal also states that “These effects of Delta9-THC are significantly reduced by cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis constituent which is devoid of the typical effects of the plant.” The conclusions of these studies show that cannabidiol (CBD) has anti-psychotic properties which naturally balance out and reduce the reported psychoactive and anxiety-like effects of high doses of THC.

Unfortunately, because of media-hype and plant breeding techniques used in the U.S., there is little knowledge of or desire to breed Cannabis strains that contain a more harmonious balance of CBD to THC levels. This has left the common population with strains devoid of CBD and with artificially high levels of THC. Studies have shown that breeding Cannabis with high levels of THC selectively reduces the amount of CBD over time. DEA eradication has has also created an environment devoid of natural Male Cannabis pollen in the air, which has forced the over-production of THC in today’s Cannabis strains, decreasing the amount of CBD in strains that are accessible in the underground market.

Cannabis underground cultural media sources like “High Times Magazine” have also helped to proliferate breeding techniques such as buying genetic clones and sterile "Feminized Seeds", rather then harvesting and saving heirloom seed. This has left underground growers dependent on genetic clones from other sources and without a reliable seed supply. Some of the gods of this underground Cannabis culture are people such as the Skunkman aka David Watson, who is ironically also one of the only people to have acquired a DEA Cannabis import license. DEA is well aware of the influence that media sources like "High Times" plays in the underground culture. For example, In the late 1980’s the DEA targeted High Times Magazine in operation “Green Merchant” to compile lists of potential growers and make raids on their gardens.

This combination of DEA eradication and cultural media manipulation of breeding techniques has allowed corporations like Bayer and GW Pharma to attain a patent monopoly over Balanced THC to CBD Cannabis strains. GW Pharma is undertaking a major research program in the UK to develop, patent and market distinct cannabis-based prescription medicines with both High THC and High CBD compounds. GW Pharma is even patenting the CBD to THC "ratios" found in their plant varieties and other products. The cannabis for this program is grown in a secret location in the UK. As of at least 2003, GW Pharma has been granted an import license from the DEA and has imported its first cannabis extracts into the US.

The following report dated September 23, 2009, is an excerpted article from Cannabis Culture Magazine and chronicles some important history, background, and intentions of Bayer and GW pharmaceuticals in the cannabis industry:
SEE: http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/19879

“Patented Pot vs. the Herbal Gold Standard by David Malmo-Levine”

“How patented marijuana strains and medicines may threaten the re-legalization movement, curb information sharing, set up a monopoly for certain breeders and medicine producers and limit users to a more expensive and inferior product. Their economic value to the pharmaceutical houses which produce them will be directly proportional to the severity of the prohibition against the use of cannabis.”

“During the last decade a split has developed within the marijuana community. One group is comprised of those who believe that the community's interests are best served by patenting marijuana strains and marijuana medicines in order to make them safer, more effective, more legitimate, more understood or, perhaps most importantly, more readily accessible since they will be legally available. The other group consists of those who believe natural cannabis medicine and strains are the "gold standard"; the safest, cheapest and, largely because of the ease with which it can be titrated, the most effective form cannabis medicine will take. This second group denies any real advantage of marijuana patents to the consumer, challenges any claim of exclusive rights of the first group to sell a particular strain and opposes the exploitation of a combination of patents and prohibition to force consumers to settle for an inferior product.”

“Within the first group we find those such as Britain's GW Pharmaceutical, who (with the help of pharmaceutical-giant Bayer) is now selling their whole-plant cannabis spray Sativex. This group also includes the Toronto-based Cannasat Therapeutics, The Nevada-based Dynamic Alert Ltd and various other smaller operations. These companies are looking to patent cannabis medicines, strains of cannabis or both - if they haven't already done so.”

“Even the US government has gotten in on the action. Patent #6,630,507 was awarded to the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2003, and states that cannabinoids are neuroprotectants and anti-inflammitory agents, useful in the prevention and treatment of stroke, trauma, auto-immune disorders, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and HIV dementia as well as many other diseases.”

“GW Pharmaceutical was granted a license to grow cannabis for medical research in 1998 and it's partner Bayer was granted a patent for Sativex in 2006. Sativex comes in a 5.5 ml spray bottle for $102 U.S. Dollars, which supplies about 51 sprays - enough for an average ten day supply. It is now available in Canada for MS and cancer pain, and has most recently become available in Britain and parts of Spain for use in the treatment of some other symptoms and syndromes.”

“GW Pharmaceutical has even patented a strain of cannabis called "Grace" in Canada. It was patented in 2005 under the Plant Breeders' Rights Act. Under this 1994 Act, all plant species (except algae, bacteria, and fungi) are eligible for "protection" (exclusive rights to sell) for 18 years. Medicine patents last between ten to twenty years depending on the country.”

“Proponents of plant and medicine patents contend that there's no controversy, that patents encourage innovation as it covers the costs of research and development, that standardization and research are impossible without patents, that patents create products superior to traditional botanical medicines, that crude plant drugs are more dangerous and less effective than patented plant products and that patenting cannabis medicines will speed up their legalization - or at the very least expand the number of people who have access to cannabis medicine. The evidence proves otherwise.”

“Ethan Russo, an employee of GW Pharmaceuticals , writing for the on-line journal "Cannabinoids", listed the benefits of pharmaceuticalized cannabis medicines in his article "Cannabinoid Medicine and the Need for the Scientific Method". They are; 1) pharmaceuticalized cannabis products will gain widespread trust of physicians and medical consumers, 2) crude herbal materials can't be standardized, 3) crude herbal materials are full of micro-organisms and 4) most of the non-GW Pharmaceuticals strains of cannabis have no CBD in them.”

“In our view none of Russo's claims are accurate; 1) the pharmaceutical industry is currently losing the trust of consumers as herbal medicines make a comeback, 2) "crude herbal materials" can easily be standardized without patents if the herb is legal 3) properly grown organic cannabis is relatively free of microbes and metals, and 4) if cannabis were legal, those high CBD strains would be more easily attainable among all breeders.”

“Dr. Geoffrey Guy of GW Pharma stated in 2005:
"To protect our extensive investment, we have sought to identify and patent certain inventions throughout the growing, extraction and manufacturing process. My comments to Mr. Lucas were made as a friendly and, hopefully, helpful gesture as I did not wish him to invest a great amount of effort into obtaining approval for a product as a prescription medicine only to find that he did not have the freedom to operate in the first place."“

“Even before GW and Bayer had secured their patent on Sativex, Dr. Guy was already threatening to sue Philippe Lucas of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society for infringing Sativex's imminent patent with VICS's "Canna-Mist" spray. Just type "Bayer" and "patent" into Google (over two million sites) if you want evidence of Bayer's habit of suing at the drop of a hat for all sorts of patent-related matters.”

“Evidence of an attempted Canadian medical marijuana monopoly began back in 2000, with a leaked, unpublished document entitled "Draft Statement of Work for The Development of a Comprehensive Operation for the Cultivation and Fabrication of Marijuana in Canada". The plan called for a seed monopoly - "a licit source" only - and the eventual phase-out of all but a pharmaceutical "inhaler" device. According to the anonymous source who leaked the document, the first version of the plan also called for cannabis strains to be patented "as if they had been genetically modified". It appears that GW Pharmaceutical and Bayer have now done so with the Cannabis strain "Grace".”

“There are many herbal medicines that have successfully fought off attempted patents and monopolies. The anti-bacterial neem tree and even the vision-producing ayahuasca have all been subjects of patent attempts. Neem tree activists have used defenses such as "traditional knowledge" and "prior art" and "community heritage" in order to legally protect their healing tree from monopoly. Unfortunately, the patent on a strain of ayahuasca remains in effect to this day.”

“Cannabis monopolies are nothing new. One can argue that the prohibition of Moses's holy kanneh-bosm annointing oil - found in Exodus 30:32 - a prohibition for people other than priests and kings - was a type of cannabis monopoly. When botanical medicine became popular again in the fourteen hundreds, women healers were first called "unschooled" and later called "witches" to prevent them from competing with the newly emerging male pharmacists. The same thing happened in the mid eighteen hundreds, except this time instead of "witches", these botanical healers were called "quacks".”

“The modern version of this monopoly began in 1910 with the Flexner Report - a report that succeeded in closing down all the naturopathic and herbal medicine schools by the 1930's. This report was partially engineered by the Rockefeller Foundation. The removal of these schools would assist the Rockefeller family in protecting their investments in pharmaceuticals from botanical competition. The Rockefeller Institute and Rockefeller Foundation were also key players in the development of the sciences of genetics and molecular biology - the fields in which the concepts of patenting of life-forms originated. Standard Oil - now Exxon/Mobil and a host of other oil companies - was the Rockefeller Foundation's source of income. Interestingly, in 1927 Standard Oil became business partners with Bayer - the marketer and distributor of Sativex in Canada.”

“Bayer had much to do with the development of the Codex global anti-herbs and anti-vitamin regulations. This was instituted in 1961, coincidentally (or perhaps not) around the same time as the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was instituted and the first Plant Patent Act was created.”

“What we know for certain is that nobody should have a monopoly on the emerging herbal health-care economy - especially corporations like Bayer and Exxon, who have had questions raised about the amount of influence they have welded in geopolitics, and what they've done with that influence.”

“When the modern patent was issued in the 1400's in Italy, they were for "new and inventive devices". This soon turned into a big money maker for kings and queens, who would issue patents for such things as salt. After a public outcry, James the first of England was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for 'projects of new invention'. It can be argued that a similar reform is due again today.”

“Perhaps lessons can be learned from those within the medical profession who have tried to pass off discoveries as inventions, and those who have not. Jonas Salk, discoverer of the polio vaccine, famously rejected attempting a patent, explaining that it was like attempting to patent the sun. This is seen by some to be his most "winning story" - what he lost in potential revenue he gained in reputation and positive influence on the world.”

“Joseph Lister was an English professor of surgery who discovered - or popularized - "antiseptic" surgery. He invented a carbolic acid spray as a method of preventing infection, but considering the fact that he didn't invent the spray bottle nor carbolic acid, he didn't bother attempting to patent his spray. He alerted the world to his discovery in the British medical journal The Lancet in 1867, and was eventually made a Baron - the first doctor so honored. They even named the first mouthwash after him - Listerine.”

“William Thomas Green Morton was a dentist from Boston. He discovered - or popularized - the fact that ether was a good anesthetic. He was successful in patenting his technique - on November 12th, 1846 he was granted U.S. Patent No. 4848. But he could not collect any money as it was merely the use of an agent already well known. His apparatus was not essential to anesthesia - fabric soaked in ether was all that was necessary. He died broke and his reputation suffered for "nostrum mongering" - for being a huckster and an opportunist.”

“George Washington Carver refused to patent any of his discoveries, saying, "God gave them to me, how can I sell them to someone else?" Ten years after his death, the United States government acquired the Missouri farm which was Carver's birthplace and dedicated it as a national shrine. The Carver epitaph reads: "He could have added fortune to fame, but, caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."“

“Perhaps one day those who are currently attempting to patent cannabis medicines and cannabis strains will wake up to the fact that a good reputation is worth much more than a patent, and the gift of a new strain or new technique given to the world will return the most precious form of good karma upon the giver, while the person who attempts to "patent the sun" - patent a gift from nature or a traditional medicine bred and developed over thousands of years - will eventually suffer the worst forms of infamy. It is up to the entire cannabis community - especially the activist community, to see that sharing is rewarded and hoarding is punished.”

“GW adopts an aggressive approach to securing intellectual property rights to protect techniques and technologies involved in the development program. Protection is sought in the areas listed below:

• Plant variety rights
• Methods of extraction patents
• Drug delivery patents
• Patents on compositions of matter for delivery of cannabis
• Methods of use patents
• Design copyright on devices
• Trademarks”

“GW States on their website:
“In the last few years our intellectual property portfolio has developed considerably. The patent portfolio has more than doubled in size and comprises 42 patent families, within these families there are numerous granted patents both in the UK and in various territories around the world. GW has also developed a trademark portfolio of 21 UK registered trademarks with equivalent marks registered in many other territories around the world. GW also holds nine registered design rights and nine plant variety rights.””

“It appears that "Patents on compositions of matter for delivery of cannabis" means "Patents on cannabinoid ratios".”

“Their ratio is 51% CBD and 49% THC:

Guy’s publicly-traded company has developed three types of medicine made from cannabis extracts: a high-THC extract called Tetranabinex, a mostly-CBD extract called Nabidiolex, and the 51-49% mixture of CBD and THC, called Sativex.

CBD began to be studied in the 1960's. Research into it's anti-psychotic (or anti-THC overdose) qualities go back to the 1980's.”

“As stated in Neems court challenge data:

“The issuance of a patent is prohibited if the patent would have been 'obvious' in light of prior art. The standard for patentability requires that the differences between a patentable invention and its prior art must be great enough so that a person with ordinary skill in the art would not consider the invention to be obvious at the time of patenting. Neems Patent No. 5,124,349 was found to not meet this standard.”

“An Indian government challenge in the United States led to the revocation of a patent on another Indian plant, turmeric, whose medicinal qualities have been known for centuries. That challenge was accepted as a result of India showing that the knowledge had been found in the Indian pharmacopoeia.”

“In the United States, prior existing knowledge to deny a patent is accepted in terms of publication in any journal, but not of knowledge known and available in oral or folk traditions.”

“This narrow view of prior knowledge has been responsible for any number of patents for processes and products derived from biological material, or their synthesis into purer crystalline forms.”

“A Third World Network expert group recommended in 1998 that developing countries apply a broad concept of 'prior art' to ensure that patents are granted to actually 'new' inventions, and to stick to the need of novelty of the process itself as a condition of granting a patent. The developing countries were also advised to deny patents for new uses of a known product or process, including second use of a medicine or for incremental additions to get a new patent on a prior one.”

“The expert group advised developing countries to define and interpret 'novelty' according to generally accepted concepts, namely, any prior disclosure whether written or not destroys novelty. Knowledge like use of medicinal plants diffused within a local or indigenous community should also be deemed prior art and patent denied.”

“And writing such a rule into their legislation would prevent patenting of knowledge or materials developed by and diffused within local or indigenous communities.”

Due to the high proliferation of pollen inherent in growing industrial Hemp, possibly the greatest threat posed to natural Cannabis strains is in the commercialization of artificially engineered industrial Hemp strains. The following document from the University of Kentucky in 1998 reports that France already holds Patents to industrial Hemp genetics, and is importing Hemp strains into Canada.

SEE: INDUSTRIAL HEMP: GLOBAL OPERATIONS, LOCAL IMPLICATIONS
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/AgEcon/pubs/res_other/hemp98.pdf

One has to wonder, if Monsanto’s Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Proposition passes in California this November, where are the strains going to come from to provide for the “statewide regulatory and commercial industry” called for in the initiative? In the initiative, the only legal Cannabis strains protected by law, are those derived from licensed dealers. If this new industry is to be in accordance with federal law, the only legal seeds that can be attained are from corporations that hold DEA permits for Cannabis production and importation into the U.S.. These permits have been monopolized by Corporations like Kenex, HortaPharm, and GW Pharma, all of which appear to be heavily influenced by the bio-tech seed industry.

The only other legal source to obtain Cannabis seed is from within the United States, exclusively in the University of Mississippi’s Cannabis research program. The UM website describes it as follows:

“Since 1968, the University of Mississippi has maintained the nation’s only legal marijuana farm through a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). In that time, the project has provided marijuana and its compounds to researchers around the country conducting HHS-approved studies of the plant, its chemical components, and their potential beneficial and harmful effects.”

“Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly joined the project when he came to Ole Miss in 1976 and has been Marijuana Project director since 1980. In the ’80s and early ’90s, ElSohly’s work focused on analyzing marijuana samples seized by the DEA to develop a marijuana “fingerprinting” system that is still being used to trace crops to their sources globally. The responsibility of analyzing the material for the DEA also provided UM researchers the opportunity to study a wide variety of plants leading to a better understanding of the many chemicals found in Cannabis.”

“In recent years, with some support from NIH, ElSohly and other UM researchers have studied Cannabis to develop new medicines and new ways of delivering the chemical compounds in marijuana, particularly tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), to treat a range of chronic conditions—from nausea due to chemotherapy for cancer patients to neuropathic pain for multiple sclerosis patients.”

“UM has patented and licensed to a pharmaceutical company a THC suppository to deliver to cancer patients the potential medicinal benefits of marijuana without the undesirable side effects.”
SEE: http://www.research.olemiss.edu/ChangeAgents/2009/FindingCuresForKillers

El Sohly also has a contract with Mallinckrodt, a giant chemical and bio-tech company that plans to market a THC-extract pill as an alternative to Marinol.
SEE: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/04/07-18The Monsanto corporation merged with Mallinckrodt in the 1930's.
SEE: http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/TCC401/A_Case.pdf

The following is an article found in Cannabis Culture Magazine published in February 2000, entitled “Genetically Modified Medpot” and reports that UM’s cannabis genetics are allegedly derived from Monsanto.
SEE: http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1322.html

“Pharmaceutical companies may seize control of Canada's medical marijuana supply.”

“A source within the Ministry of Health, who wishes to remain anonymous, has provided documents and information to Cannabis Culture, describing how Canadian pot is to be grown for upcoming medical trials. The documents call for 185 kg (408 pounds) of pot to be grown in the first year, and double that amount for the second through fifth years.”
“The thirty-five page guideline document, with the weighty title, Draft Statement of Work for The Development of a Comprehensive Operation for the Cultivation and Fabrication of Marijuana in Canada, is still open to revisions. It includes proposals for how marijuana should be grown, processed and fabricated. Included in these guidelines is the potential to give a notorious pharmaceutical company exclusive rights for selling seeds to the budding medpot industry.”

“Mississippi schwag”

“According to the document, "the acquisition of seed will be performed by Health Canada during the project initiation stage. The prime contractor can choose to provide their own seed so long as it is from a licit source."“

“Which presents a problem. How many licit seed sources exist? In North America the only licit source is the University of Mississippi. Concerns about the effectiveness of notoriously schwaggy U of M bud prompted Dr Kilby of the Community Research Initiative of Toronto to state that he would prefer clinical marijuana come from another source (see CC#22). It would seem that Health Canada recognized these concerns when it began looking for private contractors to do the job.”

“Yet will the bud really be any different than that produced by the University of Mississippi? Cannabis Culture's anonymous source within the ministry gave us the scoop.
Advertisement”

“"Scheduled labs around the country which are already growing marijuana are using seeds from the University of Mississippi," reported the official. "The genetics come from Monsanto."“

“Health Canada spokesperson Jeff Pender knew of the recent guidelines document that had been released, but denied knowledge of where the seeds will come from.”

“"Where would a potential grower get the seeds from?," repeated Pender when I asked him this question. "I'm not really sure. I guess? I could find out for you. I imagine growers could order seeds from the US."“

“Pender eventually suggested that the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which also gets its cannabis from the University of Mississippi, might be a source for contracted growers looking to buy licit seeds. If the unnamed source at the Ministry of Health is correct, all of these seeds would originally have come from Monsanto.”

“Monsanto's marijuana”

“The US-based Monsanto corporation became infamous last year when the public discovered that the huge pharmaceutical company was responsible for producing Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, for producing and selling Roundup to be sprayed on South American villages, for experimenting with dangerous genetically modified foods, and ? most recently ? for creating the dreaded "terminator" seed.”

“Terminator seeds are genetically engineered to produce a plant that will not produce viable seed, meaning that growers would be forced to go back to Monsanto each year to buy more seed stock to replant. Governments and public alike became wary of the concept when it was discovered that the terminator seed could possibly cross the species barrier, possibly spreading infertility among the plant kingdom like a disease.”

“Cannabis seeds from Monsanto are almost definitely genetically engineered. Genetically engineered plants can be patented, and it is in Monsanto's best interest to hold a patent on any seed they sell. Seed patents ensure that companies like Monsanto can continue to profit from seeds from year to year, as farmers are legally bound to buy patented seeds from the patent holder rather than simply store them from the last year's crop.”

“Pharmaceutical schwag”

“Interestingly, low-potency pot of the kind produced by Monsanto seeds at the University of Mississippi is exactly the kind of product the Ministry of Health is asking for from contractors. The guidelines ask specifically for "standardized marijuana cigarettes with THC content of between 4% and 6% and weighing [about] 850 mg."“

“Which means the cigarettes to be used for clinical trials will be phatties containing over three-quarters of a gram of schwag bud each! These fat joints will deliver about twice the tar per dose as marijuana currently available from experienced growers, which reaches between 8-10% THC.”

“The Health Canada document seems concerned that smoking can cause harm, and promises to explore other methods soon after the initial trials are run. Yet the product they choose to use is guaranteed to maximize the risks and problems associated with smoking. Could it be that the Ministry of Health is creating its own excuse not to use smoking as a delivery method?”

“Our anonymous source within the ministry assures us that the government plans to eventually only allow the use of inhalers, similar to asthma inhalers.”

“"The inhaler gets rid of any small industry that might develop, by regulating the delivery system. The other idea that didn't go through was to develop a seed system that would allow cultivars from across Canada which would then be grandfathered. What this means is that once the cultivated varieties were tested they would be introduced just the same as if they had been genetically modified."“

“Patented seeds and dose delivery methods could mean complete pharmaceutical control of medicinal cannabis sometime in the near future.”

The Cannabis legalization movement is heavily influenced from major shareholders in the Monsanto GMO seed industry. Mr. George Soros is the prime example. Soros is not only a major financier of DPA as well as being on the Board of Directors of the Drug Policy Alliance, but has also financed many different Cannabis legalization organizations across the country including the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). Soros is credited with putting financial muscle behind many of the state initiatives easing marijuana laws — beginning with a 1996 California ballot question to allow marijuana use for medical purposes. From 1996 to 2000, Soros backed medical marijuana questions there and in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada and Maine.

An associated press article dated August 27, 2008 reports that a measure that would ease Marijuana laws in 2008 was on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of billionaire financier George Soros.

Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has even stated that "All of us owe George Soros a great deal of gratitude".

If California’s Control Cannabis Proposition does not pass this November, Monsanto’s funding will undoubtedly legalize Cannabis for corporate exploitation sometime in the near future. This will Inundate the medicinal and industrial Cannabis market with artificially engineered and patented Cannabis strains from the only DEA permitted sources available: GW Pharma in partnership with Bayer Inc. and HortaPharm, Kenex corporation, and the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana program, all of which appear to be influenced heavily by the GMO seed industry.

Since the only licit sources of Cannabis are derived from interests in connection with the bio-tech industry, this will force anybody who wishes to grow natural non-patented and non-engineered Cannabis strains to attain their seeds from ‘illicit’ sources.

Other then exposing the imminent threat that Cannabis legalization organizations are posing to natural Cannabis strains in collusion with trans-national GMO seed companies, our responsibility towards this sacred plant compels us to attain natural variety Cannabis seeds and protect them from genetic contamination. Just like the Mayans have learned with Maize, artificial genetic contamination is causing the extinction of natural plant varieties around the planet:

FIGHTING GMO CONTAMINATION AROUND THE WORLD:
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=575
As we can learn from the Mayans in the foregoing article, the concept of saving seeds is sacred and central to their spiritual and physical way of life. The same is true for cultural and religious practices all around the world, whether you’re a Christian, Buddhists, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, or just a plain old Human Being, the concept of saving seed is as old as human society itself. If corporations like Monsanto, GW Pharma, Bayer and HortaPharm are allowed to carry out there interests, they will hold the genetic copyrights to all Cannabis strains on the planet. GW Pharma and HortaPharm have stated their intent to engineer Cannabis strains similar to Monsanto’s terminator seed technology. Their strains seem to be artificially manipulated to produce "one-off sterile females" which prevents reproduction of harvest-able seeds. These are the kinds of strains that are waiting to be controlled, regulated, licensed and taxed after the potential passage of proposition 19 in California and many similar initiatives across the United States being funded directly by Monsanto shareholders.

This investigated report was written and compiled by Conrad Justice Kiczenski. Conrad is 19 years old, lives in Lucerne, California, is an organic gardener, and is the host and producer of Guerrilla Radio on KPFZ 88.1 FM in Lake County

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IS MONSANTO GOING AFETR MEDICAL MARIJUANA MARKET WITH MIRACLE-GRO?

 

 

 

Scotts Miracle-Gro Looks to Help People Grow Marijuana – by the Wall Street Journal

 

By DANA MATTIOLI

 

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. has long sold weed killer. Now, it’s hoping to help people grow killer weed.

 

Scott’s Miracle-Gro is hoping to cash in on the growing medical marijuana business. WSJ’s Dana Mattioli reports.

 

In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scotts Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company.

 

“I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

 

But the Marysville, Ohio, company relies on sales at three key retailers—Home Depot Inc., Lowe’s Cos. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.—for nearly two-thirds of its revenue. With consumers still cautious about spending, the retailers aren’t building new stores as quickly as they used to, making growth for suppliers like Scotts harder to come by. Against that backdrop, Mr. Hagedorn has pushed his regional sales presidents to look for smaller pockets of growth, such as the marijuana market, that together could produce a noticeable bump in sales.

 

Sixteen states have legalized medical marijuana, the largest being California and Colorado. The market will reach $1.7 billion in sales this year, according to a report by See Change Strategy LLC, an information data services company.

 

While the report focuses on revenue from growers and dispensaries, Kris Lotlikar, president of See Change, said the market for companies selling hydroponic equipment and professional services is also thriving.

 

“We see very good growth for these types of companies as the medical-marijuana business grows,” he said.

 

via High Hopes at Miracle-Gro in Medical Marijuana Field

 

SCOTTS MIRACLE-GRO, GMO'S, AND MONSANTO:

 

"1998 also saw Scotts branch out into GM technology, through the acquisition of 80% of Sanford Scientific Inc, “allowing researchers to create desirable varieties of plants with value-added traits far beyond the capabilities of conventional plant breeding techniques”.[7] Scotts also entered into a collaboration with the Monsanto company to “bring the benefits of biotechnology to the multi-billion dollar turfgrass and ornamental plants business.[8] Under the agreement, Scotts and Monsanto agreed to share technologies, including Monsanto's extensive genetic library of plant traits and Scotts' proprietary gene gun technology to produce 'improved' transgenic turfgrass and ornamental plants. Other acquisitions in 1998 included the US company EarthGro Inc. and the continental lawn and garden products company ASEF."

 

"Scotts relationship with Monsanto became even cosier in 1999, when Scotts completed agreements with the company for exclusive US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Austria agency and marketing rights to its consumer Roundup herbicide products. Scotts also purchased the remainder of Monsanto's lawn and garden business, which included the pesticide brand Ortho."

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=367

 

Do You Think Monsanto is Helping Your Garden?

 

by TAMARA

 

Do we really want the creators of Agent Orange engineering our food? Surprised? Let me share their specialty is neurotoxin POISON. They have already contaminated over 70% of our food supply and infiltrated our political system. Yes indeed, the makers of Round Up and Scott’s Miracle grow are buying up patents to our seeds, our food, and our future. One of their former attorneys now works for our FDA helping to write a bill for their bovine hormone usage in our food supply.

 

They do not have our best interests at heart. Their GMO foods are making us sick, their Round Up and Miracle Grow toxins are poisoning our earth and their profits are making THEM happy.

 

Stand up and refuse to buy GMO foods. Mac and cheese for your kids? You might as well hand them poison because 80% of all pre packaged food in the US are GMO. Wondering about fertility rates being so low? Our seeds are becoming sterilized thanks to GMO foods and that trickles into our bodies.

 

Don’t be fooled by Miracle Gro, produced by Scotts Company an arm of Monsanto. They are a billion dollar chemical company. It’s chemical based and it’s new Organic line is a Marketing ploy. There is no organic watch dog for gardening or cleaning products

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Chemists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a process of genetically engineering plants to produce synthetic compounds.

 

The team of researchers, headed by Associate Professor Sarah O’Connor, added bacterial genes to the periwinkle plant, which enabled it to attach halogens (such as chlorine or bromine) to alkaloids, a class of compounds that are normally produced in the plant.

 

“We’re trying to use plant biosynthetic mechanisms to easily make a whole range of different iterations of natural products,” said O’Connor. “If you tweak the structure of natural products, very often you get different or improved biological and pharmacological activity.”

 

The research was funded by the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health, and was published in the November 3rd online edition of Nature. This newly developed process creates plants that can literally grow synthetic pharmaceutical compounds, which pharmaceutical companies can then patent.

 

The implications and uses of such advanced genetic manipulation of nature are sure to be many, the effects of which are yet to be seen.

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Killing Cannabis with mycoherbicides

SOURCE:

http://www.druglibrary.org/olsen/hemp/iha/jiha6101.html

 

John M. McPartland

VAM/AMRITA, 53 Washington Street Extension, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA

e-mail: john.mcpartland@vtmednet.org, phone: 802-388-0575, fax: 802-382-8845

 

David West

GamETec, 363 S. Warren Street, Prescott, WI 54021, USA

 

McPartland, John M. and David West 1999. Killing Cannabis with mycoherbicides Journal of the International Hemp Association 6(1): 1, 4-8. Last year, researchers were funded by the U.S. government to create fungi that destroy drug plants, including marijuana (Cannabis). The fungi will be genetically engineered. Controversies surrounding this "new solution" for the war on drugs are discussed, including the ethics of exterminating plant species that have occupied central roles in human culture for thousands of years. The importation of foreign fungi into new habitats is fraught with unpredictable environmental pitfalls; exotic pathogens can spread from their intended targets to other organisms. All known pathogens of marijuana also attack hemp; exterminating drug plants will probably spell the demise of the valuable and resurgent fiber and oil-seed crop. Genetically transformed fungi are genetically unstable and mutate easily. Fungi with recombinant DNA may reproduce with native fungi and create new strains of virulent, transgenic pathogens. Once these pathogens are released in the environment, they cannot be recalled. In summary, research involving transgenic pathogens of Cannabis is a dangerous misuse of biotechnology, and should be the subject of an immediate moratorium.

 

Figure 1. Healthy marijuana seedling © flanked by plants exposed to pathogenic fungi (P.g. and M.p.).

 

Introduction

The U.S. Congress recently appropriated $23 million dollars to fund a "new solution" for the war on drugs. The new solution attacks drugs at their source — the drug plants. Researchers say they can eliminate drug plants with fungal pathogens. The fungi would be genetically engineered to kill only coca plants (Erythroxylon sp.), opium poppies (Papaver sp.), and marijuana (Cannabis sp.).

Rep. Bill McCollum, who introduced the appropriation bill, described the tactic as "a silver bullet in the drug war" (Fields 1998). The development of transgenic coca and opium pathogens began several years ago, but previous appropriations were relatively small (the 1998 budget was $2.58 million). This year McCollum expanded the program to include marijuana, and moved the budget’s decimal point to the right.

A fungal weapon (Fig. 1) for the war on drugs is not new. Millions of dollars were spent in the 1970s in a world-wide search for fungi which would attack coca (Lentz et al. 1975), poppies (Schmitt and Lipscomb 1975), or marijuana (Ghani et al. 1978). It was a strange era for plant pathologists. While researchers around the globe attacked the pathogens of poppies and hemp, US-funded scientists reversed the strategy — they attacked poppies and hemp with these same pathogens (Doctor 1986).

Renewed interest in fungal pathogens for the "war on drugs" is of great concern. The law-enforcement lobby wishes to exterminate three plant species that have occupied central roles in human culture for thousands of years. Are the targeted plants inescapably evil? Are there no alternative means for reducing their dangers to humans? Reported herein are the ethical and scientific controversies pertinent to this issue, framed for consideration by academia, state and federal government agencies, and others interested in genetically engineered organisms, biological control, and the drug war (Cook et al. 1996).

 

Killer fungi

Experiments with fungi to control plants began in the late 1960s. The initial targets were noxious agricultural weeds that had been accidentally imported from one region of the world into another, where they became more aggressive because their natural enemies were often absent. Hence, the classical strategy for biocontrol of weeds involves the importation of natural enemies from their native ranges. Classical biocontrol generally enjoys wide approval and is used by organic agriculture, although the strategy does have its critics (Howarth 1991).

Classical biocontrol of marijuana was originally envisioned by Arthur McCain in 1970 (Shay 1975). McCain, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, suggested, "Just introduce a couple of pounds [of a pathogenic fungus] into an area, and while it wouldn’t have much of an effect the first year, in several years it would spread throughout the country with devastating results" (Zubrin 1981). In reality, however, classical biocontrol rarely extirpates a weed, it merely reduces the weed population to a low level (Watson 1991). Reduction without eradication is acceptable for most agricultural weeds, but is unacceptable for "zero tolerance" drug control, which seeks the complete eradication of a crop.

The other biocontrol strategy, inundative release, is also called the mycoherbicide approach. This strategy releases massive amounts of fungal spores upon target plants. The mycoherbicide approach can totally eradicate a field of drug plants. This approach, however, utilizes a delivery system similar to that of chemical herbicides — such as hovering over clandestine fields in a helicopter while releasing the control agent. Thus the mycoherbicide approach, compared to the current herbicide strategy, is equally expensive, exposes pilots to equal danger as they hover over fields, and may require retreatment of annual crops. The mycoherbicide approach is not the suggested "silver bullet."

 

Fear of foreigners

The importation of foreign fungi into new habitats is fraught with controversy. Once a self-perpetuating fungus has been released, it is impossible to recall or control (Lockwood 1993). Despite host-range testing to identify potential nontarget hosts, exotic fungi can spread from their intended targets to other plants. The entire flora of a continent may ultimately be exposed, especially if the fungus produces wind-borne spores (Auld 1991). Because of this concern, only two exotic fungi have ever been intentionally imported into North America—Puccinia chondrillina and Puccinia carduorum.

Fear of "collateral damage" to nontarget plants is justified. When Puccinia xanthii, considered a selective pathogen of Xanthium weeds, was imported into Australia from North America, the fungus spread to sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) and Calendula officinalis (Auld 1991). Native fungi sold as mycoherbicides may also spread to new hosts after release. For example, Colletotrichum gloesporioides f. sp. aeschynomene (Collego®), one of only three mycoherbicide fungi commercially available in the U.S., has a wider host range than originally determined, including several economically important legumes (TeBeest 1988).

The situation with insects is comparable to that with fungi. Turner (1985) estimated that 21% of biocontrol insects intentionally introduced into North America have spread to non-target native plants. For instance, the beetle Chrysolina quadrigemina was imported into North America to kill weedy St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), but it subsequently moved to the ornamental species Hypericum calycinum (Turner 1985). Howarth (1991) described nearly 100 cases where errant biocontrols have driven non-target hosts to extinction, mostly in island ecosystems. Howarth claimed that more species extinctions have been caused by biocontrols than by pesticides.

Non-target hosts at greatest risk to exotic biocontrol fungi include:

 

1.

 

plants phylogenetically related to the target species,

2.

 

plants with secondary compounds or morphological features similar to the target species,

3.

 

plants attacked by fungi related to the biocontrol fungus,

4.

 

plants never exposed to the biocontrol fungus,

5.

 

plants whose fungal pathogens are unknown (Watson 1991).

 

The study of fungus-host specificity is site-dependent. That is, each potential release site has its own unique flora, fauna, and climatic conditions. Sites with a high degree of biodiversity, such as Amazonia, are teeming with potential non-target hosts. Studies of tropical sites are very complicated and become susceptible to errors of tremendous consequence. The potential spread of fungi away from release sites must also be taken under consideration. Biocontrol agents do not recognize international boundaries, yet host specificity studies rarely consider non-target hosts in neighboring countries (Lockwood 1993).

In the case of pathogens of Cannabis, the non-target host at greatest risk, because of its close phylogenetic relationship to Cannabis, is hop (Humulus lupulus). At least 10 fungal pathogens are known to mutually infect Cannabis and Humulus (McPartland 1992). The next closest relatives are the Urticaceae (members of the nettle family) and the Moraceae (mulberry family), with which Cannabis shares at least 20 fungal pathogens (McPartland 1992).

 

The species debate

The non-target host at greatest risk is Cannabis itself. Within the genus we find plants cultivated for drugs (marijuana), or for fiber or seed (hemp), as well as feral plants. How closely related are these plants? Some taxonomists describe marijuana and hemp as completely separate species (Schultes et al. 1974), whereas other taxonomists say they are the same species, Cannabis sativa (Small and Cronquist 1976).

This "species debate" achieved semantic importance during the 1970s (Small 1979). Drug libertarians promoted the polytypic approach and cited marijuana as Cannabis indica to argue that statutes written against Cannabis sativa did not apply to marijuana. Conversely, law enforcement agencies have maintained that the genus is monotypic. Now, to rationalize the mycoherbicide approach, law enforcement appears to have reversed its position. Semantics aside, most fungi that attack marijuana also attack hemp (McPartland 1995b, 1995c, 1997, McPartland and Cubeta 1997).

Clearly, the greatest concern surrounding biological control is host specificity. Consider Pseudoperonospora cannabina, a marijuana pathogen promoted by biocontrol researchers (Zabrin 1981, McCain and Noviello 1985). P. cannabina may be identical to Pseudoperonospora humuli, a pathogen of hemp and hop (Hoerner 1940). McPartland (1995d) investigated several fungi that were originally described as specific pathogens of Cannabis, but under closer scrutiny, turned out to be misidentifications of widespread pathogens that attack many hosts (for example, "Pleosphaerulina cannabina" turned out to be Leptosphaerulina trifolii, "Stemphylium cannabinum" = Stemphylium botryosum, "Sclerotinia kauffmanniana" = Sclerotinia sclerotiorum).

 

Genetic engineering

Wishing to improve host specificity and toxicity of fungal pathogens, researchers are now turning to genetic engineering (Brooker and Bruckart 1996). The use of transgenic organisms, however, elicits a new set of concerns (Levin and Israeli 1996). These are concerns that resulted in the Asilomar moratorium on genetic engineering of human pathogens.

Genetic engineers have recently been investigating a coca pathogen, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. erythroxli (Sands et al. 1997, Nelson et al. 1997). F. oxysporum f. sp. erythroxli was selected for coca eradication because it caused natural epidemics in Peru and on the former Coca-cola plantation on Kauai, where "containment of the fungus proved challenging" (Sands et al. 1997). Fusarium oxysporum is well known to bioengineers, and previous researchers successfully inserted toxin genes into the species (Kistler 1991). Nevertheless, Gabriel (1991) considered it "unwise" to clone a toxin gene into a necrotrophic pathogen (such as F. oxysporum). He argued that such a pathogen might gain unexpected fitness and radically expand its host range, "a potentially dangerous experiment." Fusarium species can produce a variety of toxic metabolites known as trichothecenes, which gained some notoriety for their reputed use in biological warfare ("yellow rain"). F. oxysporum is known to cause systemic infections in humans (Rippon 1988).

Genetically transformed fungi have unstable genotypes, making mutations more likely. Experiments have shown F. oxysporum spontaneously mutates its transgenic DNA (Kistler 1991). Furthermore, F. oxysporum utilizes parasexual coupling, and at least 5% of its genome consists of transposons, or moveable pieces of DNA (Kistler 1997). Parasexuality and active transposable elements would facilitate the transfer of recombinant DNA to native fungi, potentially creating new strains of virulent pathogens. The wheat pathogen Puccinia graminis, for instance, hybridizes with other fungi on wild grasses, giving rise to offspring with increased virulence (Luig and Watson 1972, Burdon et al. 1981). This fact is not cited by proponents of biocontrol with rust fungi (Cook et al. 1996).

"Gene flow" has been more thoroughly studied in plants than fungi. Levin and Israeli (1996) documented five examples of spontaneous gene flow from crops to native plants, which resulted in new or worse weeds. The introgression of engineered genes from transgenic crops to related weed species has been demonstrated (Brown & Brown 1996), and may arise after just 2 generations of hybridization and backcrossing (Mikkelsen et al. 1996).

Currently, testing for gene flow is not standard procedure during the evaluation of transgenic organisms. This could be accomplished by crossing engineered fungi with related fungi (particularly if the fungi reproduce sexually, and especially if they are heterothallic fungi). Several generations of crossed hybrids are evaluated in serial host studies. Testing for gene flow is especially imperative for biocontrols which have been genetically manipulated to resist fungicides. Researchers have transformed Colletotrichum gloesporioides f. sp. aeschynomene (Collego®) with a gene for fungicide resistance (Brooker and Bruckart 1996). Imagine if this fungicide-resistant gene introgressed into Histoplasmosis capsulati or other human pathogens commonly found in agricultural areas!

 

The species question, round two

Another Fusarium species, F. oxysporum f. sp. cannabis (Fig. 2) is the primary candidate to kill marijuana (Hildebrand and McCain 1978, Noviello et al. 1990) and feral hemp in the American Midwest (Shay 1975). Researchers promote F. oxysporum as a marijuana mycoherbicide because they claim that hop, (Humulus lupulus), is not susceptible to fusarium wilt (McCain and Noviello 1985). However, they overlooked "Hops wilt" caused by F. oxysporum in Australia (Sampson and Walker 1982).

F. oxysporum f. sp. cannabis was originally isolated from hemp cultivars in Italy, by researchers who believed "...the wilt disease and its pathogen have not been previously described" (Noviello and Snyder 1962). In fact, these researchers missed many previous descriptions of this wilt disease (Dobrozrakova et al., 1956, Rataj 1957, Ceapoiu 1958, Czyzewska and Zarzycka 1961, Barloy and Pelhate 1962, Serzane 1962). All previous descriptions attributed hemp wilt disease to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum. This fungus is morphologically identical to F. oxysporum f. sp. cannabis, but has a very broad host range (e.g., cotton, mung beans, pigeon peas, rubber trees, alfalfa, soybeans, coffee, tobacco and many other plants).

McPartland (1995a) proposed that F. oxysporum f. sp. cannabis may be a misidentified pathotype of F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum. Similarly, the fungus causing tobacco wilt, originally named F. oxysporum f. sp. nicotianae, proved to be a race of F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum (Armstrong and Armstrong 1975). According to Kistler et al. (1998), F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum consists of at least 10 vegetative compatibility groups (VCGs). Comparing F. oxysporum f. sp. cannabis with the genotype of F. oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum can be accomplished with VCG studies using nit mutants.

 

Figure 2. Microscopic spores of Fusarium oxysporum, a potential mycoherbicide of Cannabis.

 

Conflicting interests

U.S. regulations have prevented the testing of bioengineered fungi in the field (Brooker and Bruckart 1996). But regulatory oversight is lacking in Peru and Colombia (Levin and Israeli 1996). Exigencies generated by the drug war metaphor could dangerously rush these fungi into deployment.

Moreover, saboteurs or irresponsible scientists could breach regulatory barriers, as occurred in Montana where several bioengineered organisms were illegally released around 1987 (Roberts 1987). In Australia, saboteurs illegally introduced the fungus Phragmidium violaceum to control European blackberry (Rubus fruticosus). Weedy R. fruticosus was spreading across pastures and impeding Australian cattle ranchers. The government had previously rejected ranchers’ requests to import P. violaceum, because of economic objections from commercial blackberry growers and beekeepers. Wind-borne spores of illegally introduced P. violaceum dispersed rapidly across the continent, and the fungus now infests at least four Rubus species (Watson 1991).

The Australian debacle illustrates how biocontrol may impact competing interests. The first U.S. drug czar, Carlton Turner, recognized that target plants may be considered noxious weeds by one group, and valuable crops by another group (Turner 1985). St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) is an excellent example. H. perforatum was previously branded a noxious weed. But now it has become the second-best-selling herbal medicine in the U.S. — $121 million dollars of H. perforatum was sold last year, and producers are predicting a severe shortage of this raw material (Brevoort 1998).

Consultants to the European and Canadian hemp industry face a dilemma. Ecologists endorse classical (non-engineered) biocontrol organisms as potential replacements of chemical pesticides (McPartland 1984, Doctor 1986). Physicians praise the safety of biocontrols over paraquat and other synthetic herbicides (McPartland and Pruitt 1997). Nearly 20 years ago, these reasons guided the decision to search for classical biocontrols against marijuana (McPartland 1983). But times have changed. Hemp cultivation has resurged in western Europe, the former USSR, and China. Last year the Canadian government allowed farmers to grow hemp for the first time in 50 years — 251 farmers successfully harvested 5,930 acres (Cauchon 1998). Have our neighbors to the north been explicitly informed of the "Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act" spearheaded by Rep. McCollum? The development of transgenic mycoherbicides against marijuana would endanger hemp cultivation, permanently. Hemp is usually a pest- and disease-tolerant crop requiring little or no pesticide for cultivation. It has been characterized as "an environmentally friendly crop for a sustainable future" (Ranalli 1999). Hemp should not be endangered, and research involving transgenic pathogens of Cannabis should be halted. Moreover, the use of genetically engineered pathogens as a weapon in "the drug war" should be re-evaluated.

[jointedone]

It sure ain't helping my gardens. Composted horse manure does just fine. Flowers do not like chemicals either. Plus I get rootballs and mix those in. That would be the only chemical additive. Ironic,the root balls have chem nutes,but the manure doesn't. 

[Wild Bill]

The "pharmaceutical grade" cannabis bill makes more sense in light of these articles, don't you think?

[imiubu]

.

Edited May 24, 2015 by imiubu

[trichcycler]

Sativex cannabis labs are run by David Watson a.k.a. Sam the Skunkman.

 

Here is the latest on what David has to say about Monsanto/GMO cannabis. This was on 6/09/14

 

Anyone that thinks Monsanto is making GMO weed needs to stop smoking so much, or maybe smoke a lot more until you come to your senses.

There is no GMO Cannabis, none has ever been found for sale, if you think Monsanto needs the problems connected with a GMO Cannabis drug creation and sales you might want to reconsider your opinion.

Maybe if enough people believe it, it will happen?

I am not say Monsanto is not a bunch of criminals, they are. But GMO Cannabis?????

-SamS

 

 

You can find the thread here.

 

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=287199

 

 

 

GW's team includes experts in Cannabis breeding. In the genetic model used, the cannabinoid content of each chemical phenotype (chemotype) is controlled by four independent loci. By manipulating the genes at these four positions, our scientists can precisely control the cannabinoid composition of a plant. This is explained in the diagram below:

 

 

 

cannabinoid compounds

 

 

The gene at locus O allows the production of the initial phenolic precursors (resorcinolic acids). These combine with geranyl pyrophosphate to create the intermediate cannabinoids CBG and/or CBGV, the central precursors for the end-product cannabinoids THC(V), CBD(V) and CBC(V). The functional allele O is co-dominant; O/o hybrids have a low cannabinoid content and o/o plants are cannabinoid-free.

 

The ratio of propyl- and pentyl cannabinoid precursors is determined by a postulated locus A, which is still under investigation.

 

 

 

The CBG/CBGV intermediate is further processed by the alleles of locus B. BD and BT are co-dominant; the BD gene converts CBG(V) into CBD(V) and the BT gene converts CBG(V) into THC(V). In the BD/BT genotype, codominance allows the expression of a mixed CBD/THC chemotype. Also at this locus, non-functional alleles, designated B0 can exist; these are unable to convert the CBG(V) intermediate and leave the plant with a CBG(V) predominant chemotype.

 

 

 

Locus C is fixed so all plants have CBC synthase activity. CBC synthase competes for the same CBG(V) precursor as the synthases encoded by locus B (THC and/or CBD synthase). In 'normal' Cannabis plants, CBC synthase is only active in the juvenile state. However, our scientists have discovered genetic factors that induce morphological mutations that are associated with a 'prolonged juvenile chemotype'. Prototype CBC production plants carry these factors in combination with B0/B0 at locus B. In these plants CBC synthase has no competition from THC or CBD synthase.

[trichcycler]

[trichcycler]

US Patent Pending for Genetically Modified Marijuana

By Andrew Walden @ 10:30 PM :: 20631 Views :: Drugs, GMOs

 

 

 

by Andrew Walden

 

Medical marijuana advocates would do well to question anti-genetic protests. These initiatives are a back-door way of re-prohibiting medical marijuana under the guise of banning GM plants.

 

Ironically, just as marijuana is approaching legalization, anti-GM initiatives give a weapon to drug enforcement agents who could use GM bans to justify raids against marijuana cultivators--even small growers within the “medical marijuana” limits. What protesters have missed is that today’s potent varieties of marijuana were developed by genetic modification. The University of Central Florida even has a pending US Patent for a cannabis sativa genetic modification technique.

 

In 2011, the genome of cannabis sativa was sequenced and published by British company Medicinal Genomics.

 

GM marijuana is so widespread it was written up by AFP, June 24, 2011:

 

 

Greenhouses lined with genetically modified marijuana sit on a mountainside just an hour ride from Cali, Colombia, where farmers say the enhanced plants are more powerful and profitable.

 

One greenhouse owner said she can sell the modified marijuana for 100,000 pesos ($54) per kilo (2.2 pounds), which is nearly 10 times more than the price she can get for ordinary marijuana.

 

Local authorities said the arrival of genetically modified seeds, which are imported from Europe and the United States have allowed "a bigger production and better quality at the same time".

 

A police commander in the Cauca region where Cali is located, Carlos Rodriguez, said one of the modified varieties goes by the name, "Creepy".

 

Another seed modified in The Netherlands is fetching a good price in the area, said a foreign researcher, who asked to remain anonymous. That version, well-known in Europe as "La Cominera", is named for the Colombian village where it grows.

 

"La Cominera's" higher value is due to its increased concentration of THC, the plant's principal active ingredient, and the modified plant verges on an 18 percent concentration level, compared to a normal marijuana plant's two to seven percent, said the researcher.

 

An August 16, 2011 UK Guardian article was titled: “New improved cannabis, now with genetic modifications”:

 

 

“Times change and cannabis is no exception, with the arrival of genetically modified grass. An all-natural product with a low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content is a thing of the past. ‘In just a few years we have moved from 3% or 4% THC contained in natural cannabis to concentrations closer to 10%, sometimes even 30%, with GM plants,’ Thierry explains. These substances bear no relation to what people were smoking in the 1970s.”

 

After being attacked by British medical marijuana activists fearful of a backlash from anti-GM campaigners, the article was edited with the following note attached:

 

 

“The first paragraph of the original article, as translated from the French, referred to "genetically modified" cannabis. The Guardian understands the cultivation of stronger forms of cannabis as described in the article would be the result of methods such as selective breeding. The reference to genetically modified cannabis in the article, as well as in our headline, has therefore been removed. A quote by Superintendent François Thierry in the third paragraph has been replaced with reported speech to convey his main point about an increase in the potency of cannabis — this is to avoid an ambiguity in the original quote that referred also to synthetic cannabis (though rendered by the Guardian as GM cannabis), which contains no THC. The sentence on how the Dutch may consider reclassifying cannabis has been amended to clarify that this relates to the strongest concentrations of cannabis.”

 

Unless one wants to believe that nobody at the Guardian is a competent French-English translator, the most logical conclusion is that the Guardian did not want to be unwittingly responsible for a dust-up between medical marijuana activists and anti-GM activists. Their rather absurd retraction holds that their reporting is based not on what French officials said, but on what the Guardian staff thinks they should have said.

 

Maybe somebody should tell the US Patent office to ask the Guardian's permission before it gives final approval to the University of Central Florida patent application which describes:

 

 

1. A method of producing a transgenic plant with Bgl overexpression relative to a wild-type plant, said method comprising: (a) introducing into a plant cell an expression cassette that comprises a Bgl gene to thereby produce a transformed plant cell; and (b) producing a transgenic plant from the transformed plant cell, wherein the transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height, increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….

 

9. A transgenic plant that overexpresses Bgl1 relative to a corresponding wild-type plant, wherein said transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height, increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….

 

15. The transgenic plant of claim 9, wherein said transgenic plant is Cannabis sativa, Papaver somniferum or Erythorxylum coca….

 

The three species mentioned in line 15 are marijuana and two varieties of opium poppy. Contrary to anti-GMO activist claims, GMO developers do not patent seeds, they patent the method for producing GMO seed lines, just as traditional plant breeders patent their hybridization techniques. How do the University of Central Florida techniques affect THC production? “Trichome” refers to the hairs on a plant. In Cannabis, this is where globules of THC resin accumulate. “Bgl overexpression” increases the plants’ resistance to parasites but also may aid in the release of THC resin from plant cells onto the trichomes.

 

The UK Guardian is not the only example of censorship. The website of Allan Frankel, MD, a Santa Monica, California medical marijuana doctor who specializes in high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties, screams “There Is No GMO Cannabis!” Judging from the rambling letter on his website, it appears he has been harassed by other medical marijuana providers using anti-GMO rhetoric to snatch away ‘patients’. Santa Monica is populated by wealthy, idle, ‘politically correct’ people which of course means corresponding levels of anti-GMO sentiment.

 

The story of Santa Monica’s high Cannabinoid doctor leads us around the world to--where else--Amsterdam.

 

By treating cannabis seeds with the powerful, readily available, mutagen colchicine, genetically modified “polyploid” marijuana, with higher levels of marijuana’s active ingredient THC, is created. Simple genetic testing of confiscated marijuana by police laboratories can easily determine if plants are polyploid (have more than the usual two sets of chromosomes) and therefore illegal under any GM crop ban.

 

Unlike the heavily regulated laboratory genetic modification work of companies and universities improving legal crops, marijuana is modified in unregulated underground labs without oversight. For instance:

◾The online marijuana growers guide (section 18-7) explains: “Polyploid Cannabis plants were produced by treatment with the alkaloid colchicine. Colchicine interferes with normal mitosis, the process in which cells are replicated. During replication, the normal doubling of chromosomes occurs, but colchicine prevents normal separation of the chromosomes into two cells. The cell then is left twice (or more then) the normal chromosome count. … experiments concluded that polyploids contained higher concentrations of the ‘active ingredient’. …Polyploid Cannabis has been found to be larger, with larger leaves and flowers.”

◾A 95-page 2009 paper by Sam R. Zwenger is titled, “The Biotechnology of Cannabis sativa.” Zwenger gives complete instructions for marijuana tissue culture and genetic modification.

◾Robert C. Clarke, in his book Marijuana Botany: The propagation and breeding of distinctive cannabis, explains, “Many clandestine cultivators have started polyploid strains with colchicine…. (Colchicine) treated plants showed a 166-250% increase in THC…possibly colchicine or the resulting polyploidy interferes with cannabinoid biogenesis to favor THC.”

 

Robert C Clarke is the co-founder and lead botanist of Netherlands-based Hortapharm.

 

Hortpharm research is behind “Project CBD”, dedicated to developing the high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties favored by the doctor in Santa Monica. The Project CBD website explains:

 

 

“In the spring of 1998, the British government licensed a company called GW Pharmaceuticals to grow Cannabis and develop a precisely consistent plant extract for use in clinical trials. GW's co-founder Geoffrey Guy, MD, was convinced —and had convinced the Home Office— that by using CBD-rich plants, GW could produce a Cannabis-based medicine with little or no psychoactive effect. That summer Guy described his approach at a meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society…. It was assumed that generations of breeding for maximum THC had reduced CBD in California cannabis to trace levels. GW had gotten its CBD-rich strains by acquiring the genetic library of HortaPharm, a Dutch seed company run by American ex-pat naturalists, David Watson and Robert Clarke…..”

 

In other words, Project CBD got its genetic library from the guy who literally wrote the book on genetically modified marijuana.

 

GW Pharmaceuticals—the company behind Project CBD-- is producing Sativex, approved in Canada and several European countries allegedly for the treatment of seizures related to Multiple Sclerosis. But this is not the same as “synthetic marijuana.” TheFix.com explains: “Sativex is a proprietary extract of the marijuana plant, while Spice, K2 and the other cannabis substitutes are synthetic versions of various molecules found in marijuana.” Synthetic cannabinoids used in K2 and Spice are derived from the published results of mid-1990s experiments at Clemson University.

 

This writer first pointed to online descriptions of techniques to create Genetically Modified Marijuana back in 2004.

 

What will anti-GMO protesters do when they discover that they have been smoking genetically modified weed for nearly a decade now?

[trichcycler]

GMO Weed? Connections Alleged Between Uruguay Marijuana Legalization, Monsanto and Soros Submitted by steveelliott on Thu, 07/31/2014 - 21:45 genetically modified organisms george soros GMOs gw pharmaceuticals hortapharm Legalization monsanto open society Recreational Uruguay william engdahl By Steve Elliott Hemp News Uruguay earlier this year became the first nation in the world to legalize the cultivation, sale and possession of marijuana. Now one German researcher is alleging that billionaire speculator George Soros supported legalization in that South American country as part of a plan for corporate agribusiness giant Monsanto to move into the cannabis trade. Engdahl alleges, on the website of the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD) that Monsanto is already quietly at work on a project to patent a genetically modified cannabis plant in Uruguay. Since Soros played a pivotal role in Uruguay's legalization drive (he sits on the board of the Drug Policy Alliance), and also owns considerable Monsanto stock, Engdahl believes those two things are connected, and they point towards Monsanto involvement. Soros' Open Society organization distributed $34 million last year, according to Engdahl, nearly $3.5 million of which was dedicated to marijuana legalization. Open Society funded the group Regulacion Responsable ("Responsible Control") in Uruguay; the group ran a nationwide advertising campaign for the successful legalization drive. Engdahl alleges that Soros' involvement in Uruguayan legalization "is part of a much larger global project," and further than Monsanto quietly conducts research projects on marijuana and its active ingredient, THC, and how the plant can be genetically manipulated. Monsanto is, after all, the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds. Back in 1998, the British firm GW Pharmaceuticals, which markets Sativex oral spray, containing THC and CBD, signed an agreement with Dutch seed company Hortapharm (owner of the world's largest collection of cannabis seed varieties). The agreement gives GW Pharmaceuticals the rigbht to use Hortapharm cannabis strains for their research, according to Engdahl. The German pharmaceuticals company Bayer AG in 2003 signed an agreement with GW Bayer AG agreed to an exchange with Monsanto, where both companies agreed to share the results of their research. Monsanto thus has, according to Engdahl, "discreet access" to scientific studies on the cannabis plant and its genetic modification. In 2009, GW announced it had succeeded in genetically altering a cannabis plant and patented a "new breed" of cannabis, Engdahl writes. With cannabis cultivation now legally allowed in Uruguay, Engdahl says "one can easily imagine" that Monsanto sees a vast new market opening -- one they could potentially control with patented GMO cannabis seeds much as they currently do with the current market in soybeans. President Jose Mujica of Uruguay has made it clear that he wants a unique genetic code for government-approved marijuana so that legal weed can be distinguished in order to "keep the black market under control." GMO cannabis from Monsanto would, of course, make such control possible. Monsanto has for decades been researching genetically modified soybeans and corn. Is Monsanto paving the way for the corporate giants of Big Pharma and Big Agriculture to replace natural strains of cannabis with their own patented GMO varieties? Moving into marijuana could be seen as a logical next step for Monsanto. The company is reputedly investing millions of dollars into a new technology known as RNA interference (RNAi), which could be used to manipulate everything from the color of the plant to making it indigestible to insects, or resistant to certain herbicides (like the "Roundup Ready" versions of crops that Monsanto produces to withstand the herbicides the company sells). Genetic modification through RNAi or other methods could, of course, be used to create larger, more potent marijuana plants -- and plants that could be distinguished from unauthorized, "black market" marijuana through genetic testing. - See more at: http://hemp.org/news/content/gmo-weed-connections-alleged-between-uruguay-marijuana-legalization-monsanto-and-soros#sthash.NBDvTAAS.dpuf

[trichcycler]

SATIVEX plants are genetically fingerprinted to ensure that if the genome is released to the outside world it can be tracked and growers prosecuted for illegal possession and traffic of a patented product. This methodology proved exceedingly effective for Monsanto in prosecuting farmers raising corn and soybeans – even traces of the genome spread by wind and fauna resulted in farmers sued out of business by Monsanto.

Easy as 1, 2, 3 1) Genetic tracking markers are encoded into the Sativex plant genome - it is GMO 2) Engineered tinctures are GW Pharma's trade (their patent bears this out) - a derivative not Grandma's home remedy 3) GW Patents state a specific derivative formulation for targeted efficacy GW Pharma's own Patent Data on SATIVEX clearly state a focused dual cannabinoid preparation of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol: Patent abstract: The invention relates to treatment of cancer related pain and constipation. Preferably the subject in need is administered a combination of the cannabinoids cannabidiol (CBD) and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). More preferably the cannabinoids are in a predefined ratio by weight of approximately 1:1 of CBD to THC. ( http://www.gwpharm.c...ancerPain.aspx ) Other Sativex patent reviewers give the same prospective: - http://www.reuters.c...011 RNS20110420 - http://uk.ibtimes.co...d-us-patent.htm The US government patent utilizes a full plant extract (with only DMSO added to prevent chalking) - not dissimilar to the Hemp Oil or Cannabis Oil prepared by Rick Simpson and health practitioners the world over. What CLEAR says about GW Pharma and SATIVEX: "Developed by GW Pharmaceuticals, with the co-operation of governments and drug enforcement agencies across the world, Sativex is the first stage in a master plan to hijack the medicinal properties of the cannabis plant for private profit and to reap trillion dollar rewards under the patronage of senior politicians and the law enforcement and armed forces they control. It is the ultimate scam." ( http://clear-uk.org/...ex-scam-part-1/ and http://clear-uk.org/...ex-scam-part-2/ ) (Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - Peter Reynolds of CLEAR)


"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Edited November 1, 2014 by grassmatch

[MightyMightyMezz]

Why would anyone even think of making a GMO Cannabis sativa for the purpose of increasing THC or any other trait relative to "wild" plants?  I mean we already have that with conventional breeding and have had it probably for thousands of years.  The genetic diversity in the plant seems virtually unlimited from my perspective.  Lets exhaust all those possibilities before we go screwing things up with genetic modification in the modern sense.  

[trichcycler]

I tend to agree with you MMM. We've seemingly have not even scratched the surface of this ancient healer. Much like the dozens of grains, wheat, corn etc varieties that are all but gone now, due to this same type of "forward movement" in the agricultural/scientific realm. I think nature has perfected its existence, and humans have not improved nature from the earths point of view(imo)

These subjects confuse and upset so many people unaware of how our own food has been genetically modified in many instances for half a century. The notion of GMO cannabis is a very natural pathway for some corps like big pharma. Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, etc. this is precisely what they do, and have done historically. Think "cant patent the plant, so patent its constituents, synthesized, or even customized "as is the case for a plethora of already marketed medicines.  

Consumers have little respect for the tinkering of nature,  and little responsibility in the same hand. We scream at bio/agri corps for doing this, yet demand the very products they purport and keep  them on the shelves.  We reach for medicines that are derived from natural plant materials and pay mad crazy prices for the patented materials and even demand more and more of them to be produced. We are the driving force of this technology. Monsanto would have us believe that without tissue culturing GMO varieties we would be starving.

 

I could list advantages to GMO products, as has been demonstrated by voters and  congressional hearings for a long time. I am not a proponent of GMO, but admittedly am fascinated with the technology as well as the positive possibilities. the thought that someone could genetically manipulate a bacteria that eats flour and poops sugar is disgusting to me, yet, its hard to find a crinkly/boxed foodstuff without it listed in the contents.

I don't fear the technology, but I do fear the profit motive for its implementation. We have lost countless varieties over the years directly due to this technology, or those who wish to profit with it. thousands of farmers around the globe have lost their land, age old heritage seedstock, livelihood, and even their lives fighting the big Agri demons. They've been sued even for possessing corn strains that were pollinated from "wild" pollen containing patented genes, from a continent away .

 

You are correct, we can manipulate genes with selective breeding techniques. I wish that was the extent of our knowledge. I fear those voted into power who use this technology(you know, the lesser of two evils most likely) to scrape billions of dollars from our wallets exploiting valuable medicinal plants for profitable patents.

We destroy more medicinal plants varieties yearly in forests than we have in use today. The real tragedy are the answers to "why", and "for whom".

 

Medicines are a sound example of "successful genetic manipulation"

A biologic is manufactured in a living system (GMO)such as a microorganism, or plant or animal cells. Most biologics are very large, complex molecules or mixtures of molecules. Many biologics are produced using recombinant DNA technology.

A drug is typically manufactured through chemical synthesis, which means that it is made by combining specific chemical ingredients in an ordered process. These gmo drugs are slated to be half of the the top 100 drugs sold. the sales already from them are staggering. We demand the technological advances made possible with gmo technology.

 

 

 

Our best cancer medicines commercially available are derived from plants other than cannabis currently. We cant seem to get over the "illegality" to fully exploit this plant yet. If it comes to a point where it simply is not available to suffering patients, unless its patented and modified, I'd have some serious voting considerations. We've been diddle dawdling for a millennium with the cannabis plant, yet we somehow allowed it to be taken from us. We've known for a very long time that it was serious medicine, and held great promise for many dis-ease. we fell asleep at the wheel somewhere along the way I think. We used to consider our food as our medicine, and now, we demand it gets modified and patented before we use it seems. who among us can live without gmo foods and medicines? I try, believe me, to no avail. Most everything is meddled with, even our ground and rain water. It's difficult to build up from there.

 

Know that genetic modifications happen to life forms daily. Even humans undergo modification with foods, fungi, radiation, heat, virus', bacteria, etc. Every time we're infected with a cold, or even given a vaccine, a very real genetic manipulation is taking place. We have got to take control of this before it gets out of hand...that was the mantra of the "me's" 30 years ago, and long before me too. Nobody listened then, saw the tech as a conspiracy theory. After all , who could believe that the Army could have and use sprout seeds that will illuminate in the presence of bomb materials. They could drop the seeds at night, to sprout in the morning using their own source of water encapsulation. A fly over could see the illumination the following night from far above. Or glowing Pine trees lining the freeway medians, gmo'd with inserted gold particles in their dna. I believed it then, and see it now.

I cant ignore it, and it wont go away. I don't have to like it either. but it is happening. I left out the really freaky gmo projects I'm aware of in agri/bio/pharma/polymers.

 

the more aware we are of the impending, inevitable outcome, the better equipped we could be to thwart it's nefarious motivations. I can only hope.

 

peace

[Wild Bill]

Why would anyone even think of making a GMO Cannabis sativa . . .

 

Monsanto wants to control the world's food supply through their GMO grain. When a neighboring field is pollinated by the GMO crop Monsanto sues the farmer for patent infringement . They probably want to do the same with cannabis as soon as it's legal.

 

It’s not science fiction anymore: Monsanto seeks to control world’s food Edited November 2, 2014 by Wild Bill

[trichcycler]

not marijuana, but frankenApples!!!!!!!!1 Gene-Silencing and the 'Arctic' Apple (Op-Ed) . LiveScience.com By Margaret Mellon 1 hour ago     . ˠ ➕ ✕ . .. . Gene-Silencing and the 'Arctic' Apple (Op-Ed) . View photo Gene-Silencing and the 'Arctic' Apple (Op-Ed) . Margaret Mellon is a science policy consultant who specializes in food and agriculture. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Biotechnology is heading into the Garden of Eden. A Canadian corporation, Okanagan Specialty Fruits, is offering a genetically engineered apple that doesn't brown after it's bruised or sliced. The U.S. Department of Agriculture appears to be on the brink of deregulating the so-called "Arctic" apple, allowing it to be planted and sold without any further oversight. The company won't label the apples as genetically engineered, but will sell the fruit under the Arctic apple brand. To many people, reduced browning may not seem like such a big deal. The new apples won't be any cheaper, taste any better or carry any fewer toxic chemicals than conventional apples do. But Okanagan hopes the apple will appeal to fresh-cut apple-slice processors, the food service industry and consumers unwilling to splash sliced apples with lemon juice. [GMOs: Facts About Genetically Modified Food ] It is not yet clear how tempting the Arctic apples will be. Cut-apple processors account for only a small part of the apple industry. Growers of fresh apples — the much larger part of the industry — worry that genetically engineered apples will stir unwanted controversy and perhaps tarnish the apple's image as a traditionally healthful product. Also, some consumers may value browning as an indicator of freshness. Gene silencing: The next wave of genetically engineered crops Whatever challenges it poses to the apple industry, the Arctic apple raises a much larger issue for the public: how to evaluate the risks of the next big wave of genetically engineered crops and foods. Does the Arctic apple pose risks to health and the environment? As of right now, the government doesn't know. That's because the Arctic apple is the product of complex new genetic engineering techniques that the USDA is just learning how to evaluate. Unlike earlier cut-and-splice techniques focused on DNA, the new techniques are based on the manipulation of RNA molecules. RNA molecules recognize and bind to DNA sequences as cells go about their routine activities. Organisms are like orchestras; they only work well if each instrument (or gene) plays when it is supposed to and at the right level. Figuring out how the tens of thousands of genes that make up organisms play at the right levels at the right time has been a major focus of molecular biologists for the last 15 years. Craig Mello and Andrew Fire were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2006 for the seminal discovery that double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) could silence genes and affect which genetic instruments play when. Since then, scientists have discovered many more types of RNA involved in genetic orchestration, butdsRNA remains central to those processes. Genetic engineers can now use gene silencing to dial back the expression of genes. The Arctic apple has been engineered to silence the polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzymes responsible for browning in apple flesh after the fruit is cut. Concerns about turning off genes Is there any reason to worry about turning genes off? Yes. RNA manipulations may end up turning down, or off, genes other than those that were targeted. How could that happen? Well, as detailed in commentsto the USDA on the Arctic apple from the Center for Food Safety, it turns out that many genes contain similar, or even identical, stretches of DNA. A dsRNA targeted to one gene might turn off, or down, those other genes. Similar DNA stretches can be found in unrelated genes scattered around the genome or, as in the case of the Arctic apple, in a family of genes closely related to the target genes. The PPO genes that cause browning in apples are part of a family of 10 or 11 closely related genes. Okanagan's process is aimed at only four of the genes, but because the gene sequences are very similar it will probably have effects on all of them. Why does that matter? PPO gene families perform multiple functions in plants. Little is known about the PPO gene family in apples, but in other plants, PPO genes are known to bolster pest and stress resistance. This raises the question of whether non-browning apple trees might be more vulnerable to disease and require more pesticides than conventional apples — and whether they might transfer those vulnerabilities to other apple trees. But the company's petition to the USDA for deregulation did not analyze PPO gene functions, other than browning, in apples — nor did it measure the levels of PPO gene expression in the untransformed apples to compare with those in the transformed apples. Okanagan's petition regarding its apple also did not analyze whether it has inadvertently silenced genes outside the PPO family. In addition to failing to properly characterize the genetically engineered apple, the Okanagan assessment gave short shrift to potential effects on wild pollinators and honeybees, human nutrition and weediness. Getting a handle on gene silencing The stunning inadequacy of the Arctic apple risk assessment is largely the USDA's fault. The agency just accepted what the company gave it and did not require specific information on the risks of gene silencing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which offers voluntary food safety reviews of genetically engineered foods, also has yet to publish its approach to the evaluation of gene-silencing risks. The FDA and the USDA need new protocols for evaluating these complex new technologies. Modern genomics research has provided scientists with powerful tools to identify nontarget genes that might be turned off by gene silencing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a step in the right direction last January by convening experts to look at that agency's ability to evaluate dsRNA molecules used as pesticides. After noting some of the ways gene silencing to control pests might go wrong, the committee concluded that the EPA's tried-and-true methods for evaluating chemical pesticides would not work to assess such risks and that new approaches, including genomics, were needed. The USDA and the FDA should convene their own expert panels on gene silencing. Once the experts have brainstormed how gene-silencing technologies might misfire in the environment and food safety arenas, the committees will be able to make recommendations on how to evaluate the risks of the new technologies. Then, the USDA and the FDA will know what information to require from Okanagan and other companies to evaluate their products. Until such workshops are held and assessment protocols developed, the U.S. government should hold back on the approval of products based on gene silencing. Let's be smarter than Eve and not bite into this apple until we know whether there is a worm inside.

[trichcycler]

http://www.occupycorporatism.com/washington-state-pot-scare-rise-gmo-marijuana/

In the state of Washington, retail sales of recreational marijuana are expected to skyrocket as an estimated 20 more dispensaries are poised to open statewide.

Regulators, business owners and experts are decrying that marijuana “could sell out in Washington within hours of days” due to “limited harvests by licensed growers and processors, or because they failed to clear regulatory hurdles to get their product to market.”

The Washington State Liquor Control Board (LCB) has approved licensing for 80 growers out of 2,600 applicants. This is foundational causation to the pending scarcity that is being talked about by analysts.

Dominic Covra, executive director of the Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy (CSCSP) explained: “Shoppers looking to get high on Tuesday could see a gram selling at $15-$30. Novelty-seekers and tourists might pay $25 or $30 per gram – roughly twice the current price at weakly regulated medical dispensaries. At those prices, heavy users will stick with neighborhood dispensaries or drug dealers.”

Cannabis edibles have not been approved for retail sales “because no processor has been cleared to operate a cannabis kitchen.”

Creating the perception of scarcity by only approving 3% applicants of marijuana growers and retailers may have ulterior motive – the pave the way for the need for genetically modified marijuana to be provided by the Bio Tech industry; specifically Monsanto.

In Colorado, the infiltration of genetically modified marijuana is being fostered by United Cannabis (UCANN) and dispensaries such as RiverRock .

Earnest Backmon, president and chairman of the board for UCANN is also the “owner and the master grower at RiverRock Colorado and is responsible for the production, processing, workflow management, JIT inventory control, security, staffing, training and recruiting.”

UCANN prides themselves on developing a “unique proprietary cannabinoid therapy program” who is currently partnered with “domestically and internationally with local businessmen, entrepreneurs, scientists, and government agencies for the purpose of promoting Best Practices in Planning, Procedures, Governance and Patient Care.”

On the board of directors for UCANN, sits John C. Hunter , consultant and special advisor to the executive board, who began his career into genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with Monsanto in 1969.

Hunter spent the next 30 years working toward boosting sales, engineering and managing the direction of Monsanto; as well as holding specialized positions as manager of various chemical divisions of Monsanto from 1989 to 2004.

During his acceptance as part of the executive team for UCANN, Hunter said: “I welcome the excitement and the challenges this nascent, albeit fast moving cannabis industry has to offer. I am thoroughly impressed with the executive team at United Cannabis. They are all reliable and notable experts in their field; passionate and dedicated to both the science and its patients. They were very helpful in addressing my initial concerns with the overall industry, and I believe the concerns of many in my generation, and have successfully illustrated the urgency and usefulness of Cannabis to public health.”

During his time with Solutia, Hunter was part of a lawsuit wherein $700 million was presented as compensation for illegal dumping of PCB and contamination by Solutia and Monsanto affecting more than 20,000 residents in Anniston, Alabama.

PCB is known to be an endocrine disruptor, a neurotoxin and carcinogenic; as well as having similar effects on the human body as Agent Orange (a chemical produced by Monsanto).

Chadwick Ruby, chief operations officer for CNAB said of Hunter: “With his decades of experience leading Fortune 500 companies, John’s insight will provide guidance to shape our company during this growth phase. He adds a unique perspective to our company that will make us a formidable player in our sector. He also understands how Cannabis has the potential to provide therapy to a wide range of people with chronic illnesses that have been underserved due to the lack of research in the field.”

A study by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education and Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco and the University of Helsinki pointed out how “legalizing marijuana opens the market to major corporations, including tobacco companies, which have the financial resources, product design technology to optimize puff-by-puff delivery of a psychoactive drug (nicotine), marketing muscle, and political clout to transform the marijuana market.”

The authors of the study wrote: “In the current favorable political climate for marijuana decriminalization, policymakers and public health authorities should develop and implement policies that would prevent the tobacco industry … from becoming directly involved in the burgeoning marijuana market, in a way that would replicate the smoking epidemic, which kills 480,000 Americans each year.”

Documents from 1969 show that Philip Morris was in talks with the Department of Justice (DoJ) to “secretly secure marijuana from the government for marijuana research.”

It was stated 44 years ago that Philip Morris recognized marijuana as a “possible product” the corporation wanted to explore the potentials of to market to younger audiences.

In 1970, a Philip Morris official stated: [W]e regard it as an opportunity to learn something about this controversial product, whose usage has been increasing so rapidly among the young people.”

Edited December 1, 2014 by grassmatch

[trichcycler]

A genetically modified organism, or GMO, is an organism that has had its DNA altered or modified in some way through genetic engineering.

 

In most cases, GMOs have been altered with DNA from another organism, be it a bacterium, plant, virus or animal; these organisms are sometimes referred to as "transgenic" organisms. A gene from a spider that helps the arachnid produce silk, for example, could be inserted into the DNA of an ordinary goat.

 

That may sound far-fetched, but that exact process was used to breed goats that produce silk proteins in their goat milk. The milk is then harvested and the silk protein is isolated to make a lightweight, ultra-strong silk with a wide range of industrial and medical uses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genetically modified food

 

The range of GMOs can boggle the mind. Geneticists have bred GMO pigs that glow in the dark by inserting into their DNA a gene for bioluminescence from a jellyfish. Tomatoes have been developed that resist frost and freezing temperatures with antifreeze genes from a cold-water fish, the winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus). As with many early GMO experiments, that one was less effective than hoped and was never brought to market.

 

By far the biggest use of GMO technology has been in large-scale agricultural crops: At least 90 percent of the soy, cotton, canola, corn and sugar beets sold in the United States have been genetically engineered.

 

The GMO crops that are widely used have, for the most part, been genetically engineered to control pests in one of two ways: They either produce a pesticide within their tissues, or they are resistant to a pesticide like Roundup (manufactured by Monsanto Corp.).

 

One widely used method of incorporating insect resistance into plants is through the gene for toxin production found in the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), according to the World Health Organization. GMO crops that are modified with the Bt gene have a proven resistance to insect pests, thus reducing the need for wide-scale spraying of synthetic pesticides.

 

In addition to pest resistance, GMO crops can be engineered for disease resistance, drought tolerance, added nutrients, hot or cold temperature resistance and other beneficial traits. These genetic enhancements, however, aren't universally welcomed, and there's been widespread resistance to the development and marketing of GMO crops and other organisms.

 

 

 

How safe are GMOs?

 

It depends on whom you ask. A large number of anti-GMO activists — who refer to GMO crops as "Frankenfoods" — believe GMOs can cause environmental damage and health problems for consumers.

 

"Genetically modified foods have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals," according to the Institute for Responsible Technology, a group of anti-GMO activists.

 

"Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe," according to the Non-GMO Project. "In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs."

 

However, many scientific organizations believe the fear-mongering that runs through discussions of GMO foods is more emotional than factual. "Indeed, the science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe," the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said in a 2012 statement.

 

"The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: Consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM [genetically modified] crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques," according to the AAAS.

 

"Since GM crops were first commercialized in 1996 … regulatory agencies in 59 countries have conducted extensive scientific reviews and affirmed the safety of GM crops with 2,497 approvals on 319 different GMO traits in 25 crops," according to a statement on the website for Monsanto, the world's largest manufacturer of GMOs. "The majority (1,129) of approvals on GM crops have been on the food safety of the product."

 

GMO labeling debated

 

These assurances, however, do little to appease opponents of GMO development — and there have been cases where GMOs have caused harm. Potatoes engineered with a lectin gene (for resistance to pests) were linked to stomach damage in rats that consumed the potatoes, according to a report from the University of California, Davis. And in 1989, 37 people died and about 1,500 were sickened after ingesting L-tryptophan (a nutritional supplement) that was manufactured by a strain of GMO bacteria.

 

In both of these cases, however, it could not be determined that the GMO food itself was the cause of the problems: The L-tryptophan, for example, may have been contaminated with an impurity that arose from the manufacturing process, not from the L-tryptophan.

 

The argument over the development and marketing of GMO foods has become a political hot potato in recent years. In 2012, voters in California were asked if food made from GMOs should be labeled as such. The initiative was defeated — but only after GMO proponents like Monsanto, General Mills, Pepsico, DuPont, Hershey, Cargill, Kellogg, Hormel, Kraft, Mars, Goya, Ocean Spray, Nestle and other industrial food marketers spent millions on advertising to convince voters to vote against the measure.

 

Opponents in several states and countries continue to push for GMO labels on foods — if not outright bans on GMO foods — but industry and science insists the foods are safe, labels aren't needed and they'll just confuse consumers. Only one thing is certain: The battle for and against GMO crops, and the foods containing them, isn't likely to end soon.

http://www.livescience.com/40895-gmo-facts.html

[Restorium2]

[trichcycler]

http://bcseeds.com/genetically-modified-bc-sky-heaven-bud-p-194.html?cPath=15

 

Genetically Modified Marijuana seeds For Sale !!! OMG!!!!

 

Creators of Forever Buds, Genetically Modified Marijuana

 

A Single Marijuana Plant That Gives Buds For Decades

 

Marijuana plants flower when they are just a few weeks of age, but then they die. Now, BC Seeds has discovered the genetic switch that keeps the plants young for decades, keeping it stuck in the flowing stage which permits its owner, year round production of unlimited buds.

 

BC SEEDS are the creators of Infinite Euphoria Bud is the strain that is causing big pharma to become really scared as it can hurt billions in revenue from prescription revenues. Infinite Euphoria Bud is the real deal, and rumors are floating that big pharma is offering 15 Million in "hush" money to take it off the market.

 

The worlds strongest weed winner for 2010 is clearly Infinity Bud by BC SEEDS. They have been the only seedbank spending hundreds of thousands in marijuana research and development, and newly discovered cannabinoids have now permanently changed the cannabis world to a much higher standard. Other seedbanks genetics are now in the dinosaur ages as BC discovers the best genetics through hard work and R&D. Upstate Bud is now old news and still kills any other seedbanks genetics, and new strains like Oracle Bud, Infinite Bliss, Berry White Elephant, Blue Elephant Outdoors are now the leaders in the world of the best marijuana.

[trichcycler]

US Patent Pending for Genetically Modified Marijuana

By Andrew Walden @ 10:30 PM :: 21505 Views :: Drugs, GMOs

 

 

 

by Andrew Walden

 

Medical marijuana advocates would do well to question anti-genetic protests. These initiatives are a back-door way of re-prohibiting medical marijuana under the guise of banning GM plants.

 

Ironically, just as marijuana is approaching legalization, anti-GM initiatives give a weapon to drug enforcement agents who could use GM bans to justify raids against marijuana cultivators--even small growers within the “medical marijuana” limits. What protesters have missed is that today’s potent varieties of marijuana were developed by genetic modification. The University of Central Florida even has a pending US Patent for a cannabis sativa genetic modification technique.

 

In 2011, the genome of cannabis sativa was sequenced and published by British company Medicinal Genomics.

 

GM marijuana is so widespread it was written up by AFP, June 24, 2011:

 

 

Greenhouses lined with genetically modified marijuana sit on a mountainside just an hour ride from Cali, Colombia, where farmers say the enhanced plants are more powerful and profitable.

 

One greenhouse owner said she can sell the modified marijuana for 100,000 pesos ($54) per kilo (2.2 pounds), which is nearly 10 times more than the price she can get for ordinary marijuana.

 

Local authorities said the arrival of genetically modified seeds, which are imported from Europe and the United States have allowed "a bigger production and better quality at the same time".

 

A police commander in the Cauca region where Cali is located, Carlos Rodriguez, said one of the modified varieties goes by the name, "Creepy".

 

Another seed modified in The Netherlands is fetching a good price in the area, said a foreign researcher, who asked to remain anonymous. That version, well-known in Europe as "La Cominera", is named for the Colombian village where it grows.

 

"La Cominera's" higher value is due to its increased concentration of THC, the plant's principal active ingredient, and the modified plant verges on an 18 percent concentration level, compared to a normal marijuana plant's two to seven percent, said the researcher.

 

An August 16, 2011 UK Guardian article was titled: “New improved cannabis, now with genetic modifications”:

 

 

“Times change and cannabis is no exception, with the arrival of genetically modified grass. An all-natural product with a low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content is a thing of the past. ‘In just a few years we have moved from 3% or 4% THC contained in natural cannabis to concentrations closer to 10%, sometimes even 30%, with GM plants,’ Thierry explains. These substances bear no relation to what people were smoking in the 1970s.”

 

After being attacked by British medical marijuana activists fearful of a backlash from anti-GM campaigners, the article was edited with the following note attached:

 

 

“The first paragraph of the original article, as translated from the French, referred to "genetically modified" cannabis. The Guardian understands the cultivation of stronger forms of cannabis as described in the article would be the result of methods such as selective breeding. The reference to genetically modified cannabis in the article, as well as in our headline, has therefore been removed. A quote by Superintendent François Thierry in the third paragraph has been replaced with reported speech to convey his main point about an increase in the potency of cannabis — this is to avoid an ambiguity in the original quote that referred also to synthetic cannabis (though rendered by the Guardian as GM cannabis), which contains no THC. The sentence on how the Dutch may consider reclassifying cannabis has been amended to clarify that this relates to the strongest concentrations of cannabis.”

 

Unless one wants to believe that nobody at the Guardian is a competent French-English translator, the most logical conclusion is that the Guardian did not want to be unwittingly responsible for a dust-up between medical marijuana activists and anti-GM activists. Their rather absurd retraction holds that their reporting is based not on what French officials said, but on what the Guardian staff thinks they should have said.

 

Maybe somebody should tell the US Patent office to ask the Guardian's permission before it gives final approval to the University of Central Florida patent application which describes:

 

 

1. A method of producing a transgenic plant with Bgl overexpression relative to a wild-type plant, said method comprising: (a) introducing into a plant cell an expression cassette that comprises a Bgl gene to thereby produce a transformed plant cell; and (b) producing a transgenic plant from the transformed plant cell, wherein the transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height, increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….

 

9. A transgenic plant that overexpresses Bgl1 relative to a corresponding wild-type plant, wherein said transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height, increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….

 

15. The transgenic plant of claim 9, wherein said transgenic plant is Cannabis sativa, Papaver somniferum or Erythorxylum coca….

 

The three species mentioned in line 15 are marijuana and two varieties of opium poppy. Contrary to anti-GMO activist claims, GMO developers do not patent seeds, they patent the method for producing GMO seed lines, just as traditional plant breeders patent their hybridization techniques. How do the University of Central Florida techniques affect THC production? “Trichome” refers to the hairs on a plant. In Cannabis, this is where globules of THC resin accumulate. “Bgl overexpression” increases the plants’ resistance to parasites but also may aid in the release of THC resin from plant cells onto the trichomes.

 

The UK Guardian is not the only example of censorship. The website of Allan Frankel, MD, a Santa Monica, California medical marijuana doctor who specializes in high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties, screams “There Is No GMO Cannabis!” Judging from the rambling letter on his website, it appears he has been harassed by other medical marijuana providers using anti-GMO rhetoric to snatch away ‘patients’. Santa Monica is populated by wealthy, idle, ‘politically correct’ people which of course means corresponding levels of anti-GMO sentiment.

 

The story of Santa Monica’s high Cannabinoid doctor leads us around the world to--where else--Amsterdam.

 

By treating cannabis seeds with the powerful, readily available, mutagen colchicine, genetically modified “polyploid” marijuana, with higher levels of marijuana’s active ingredient THC, is created. Simple genetic testing of confiscated marijuana by police laboratories can easily determine if plants are polyploid (have more than the usual two sets of chromosomes) and therefore illegal under any GM crop ban.

 

Unlike the heavily regulated laboratory genetic modification work of companies and universities improving legal crops, marijuana is modified in unregulated underground labs without oversight. For instance:

◾The online marijuana growers guide (section 18-7) explains: “Polyploid Cannabis plants were produced by treatment with the alkaloid colchicine. Colchicine interferes with normal mitosis, the process in which cells are replicated. During replication, the normal doubling of chromosomes occurs, but colchicine prevents normal separation of the chromosomes into two cells. The cell then is left twice (or more then) the normal chromosome count. … experiments concluded that polyploids contained higher concentrations of the ‘active ingredient’. …Polyploid Cannabis has been found to be larger, with larger leaves and flowers.”

◾A 95-page 2009 paper by Sam R. Zwenger is titled, “The Biotechnology of Cannabis sativa.” Zwenger gives complete instructions for marijuana tissue culture and genetic modification.

◾Robert C. Clarke, in his book Marijuana Botany: The propagation and breeding of distinctive cannabis, explains, “Many clandestine cultivators have started polyploid strains with colchicine…. (Colchicine) treated plants showed a 166-250% increase in THC…possibly colchicine or the resulting polyploidy interferes with cannabinoid biogenesis to favor THC.”

 

Robert C Clarke is the co-founder and lead botanist of Netherlands-based Hortapharm.

 

Hortpharm research is behind “Project CBD”, dedicated to developing the high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties favored by the doctor in Santa Monica. The Project CBD website explains:

 

 

“In the spring of 1998, the British government licensed a company called GW Pharmaceuticals to grow Cannabis and develop a precisely consistent plant extract for use in clinical trials. GW's co-founder Geoffrey Guy, MD, was convinced —and had convinced the Home Office— that by using CBD-rich plants, GW could produce a Cannabis-based medicine with little or no psychoactive effect. That summer Guy described his approach at a meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society…. It was assumed that generations of breeding for maximum THC had reduced CBD in California cannabis to trace levels. GW had gotten its CBD-rich strains by acquiring the genetic library of HortaPharm, a Dutch seed company run by American ex-pat naturalists, David Watson and Robert Clarke…..”

 

In other words, Project CBD got its genetic library from the guy who literally wrote the book on genetically modified marijuana.

 

GW Pharmaceuticals—the company behind Project CBD-- is producing Sativex, approved in Canada and several European countries allegedly for the treatment of seizures related to Multiple Sclerosis. But this is not the same as “synthetic marijuana.” TheFix.com explains: “Sativex is a proprietary extract of the marijuana plant, while Spice, K2 and the other cannabis substitutes are synthetic versions of various molecules found in marijuana.” Synthetic cannabinoids used in K2 and Spice are derived from the published results of mid-1990s experiments at Clemson University.

 

This writer first pointed to online descriptions of techniques to create Genetically Modified Marijuana back in 2004.

 

What will anti-GMO protesters do when they discover that they have been smoking genetically modified weed for nearly a decade now?