Cannabis and the language of the media

[grace]

Did you know that cannabis growers use chemicals! Yes they do, they use chemicals to feed their plants. They grow them by hydroponics, and they use man-made mediums to grow in! They grow them under lights too! They create ‘factories to produce the plants. They also genetically alter the plants to create new strains of cannabis.

 

This all sounds rather complicated and aberrant and by the use of such language to describe cannabis growing the yellow journalists make it seem alien and unnatural. That is what they set out to do at every opportunity, alienate the cannabis grower in the eyes of the general public.

 

So let examine the language they use and the truth that it tries to hide in its lexicon smokescreen.

 

Chemical? Well what is a chemical?

 

Everything is a chemical. Anything made of matter is therefore a chemical. Any liquid, solid, or gas; any pure substance or any mixture of substances is a chemical. Water is a chemical, salt is a chemical, in fact you are a walking, talking, singing, dancing bag of chemicals.

 

Of course chemicals are used to feed plants, how do you think farmers feed their crops, how do you think you get the food on your plate. Don’t you use chemicals like BabyBio or Fisons plant feed to feed your houseplants? Even putting manure onto plants is in fact using chemicals, the manure is a mixed heap of chemicals which break down and feed the plants. The plant-feeds for cannabis are no different, no more unnatural than horseshit.

 

Hydroponics, ooh, that sounds dodgy! Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants without soil. Most commonly, hydroponics cultivates plants in nutrient-rich water, although hydroponics can also be considered to be the practice of growing plants in other aggregates, such as a soil-less mix of Vermiculite and Pearlite, something commonly used by many gardeners.

 

Editors Note: In Australia, the press use the term "Hydro" in the same vein as the British press uses the term "Skunk". To signify some super-strong, genetically modified cannabis which actually, doesn't exist. Its an urban myth created as a result of a newspaper editors vivid imagination.

 

Hydroponics is an advantageous method of gardening both for home and commercial use. There are no weeds to deal with, and hydroponic plants are typically more healthy, mature earlier, and use less space. Most of the tomatoes you buy are grown by hydroponic method.

 

The benefits of growing under lights are hard to ignore. There is simply no better way to grow an abundance of stocky green seedlings. If you grow flowering plants indoors, such as orchids, African violets, citrus and hibiscus, lights will keep them blooming almost year-round. If you want a wintertime harvest of vine-ripened tomatoes, herbs and salad greens, that too can be accomplished with lights.

 

Sunlight contains the complete spectrum of light including all colours of the rainbow: red through yellow to blue and violet. Plants use the full spectrum for photosynthesis, although red and blue light seem to be most critical. Red light stimulates vegetative growth and flowering, but if a plant gets too much red light, it will become tall and spindly. Blue light regulates plant growth, which makes it ideal for growing foliage plants and short, stocky seedlings.

 

The genetic shaping of plants has gone on for thousands of years, so why would it seem unnatural and sinister to cross breed cannabis plants to create strains, which are more tailored for the desired attributes?

 

Breeding plants to create new varieties and improve upon old ones is a hobby that nearly everyone can engage in. The crossing techniques are easy to learn and you can experiment with many kinds of plants. Generally, amateur plant breeders work with traits that are fairly easy to change -- for example, flower colour, fruit shape, or plant size, or in the case of cannabis, the strength, flavour and high..

 

Plant characteristics can be changed after many generations by a process of selection. There are two types of selection -- natural and artificial.

 

Natural selection is the process that occurs in nature whereby strong and well- adapted plants survive while weak and poorly adapted plants eventually die out. This process has taken place since the beginning of life on earth and it is still occurring in nature.

 

Artificial selection is the process that humans use to obtain more desirable types of plants. Thousands of years ago people learned that saving seed from the kind of plant they wanted to continue growing would increase the chances of getting a plant similar to the original. But our ancestors didn't know what their chances of success were nor did they understand the processes by which traits were changed or maintained. It wasn't until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that humans began to understand the laws of heredity and the processes of plant reproduction. Even today these fundamentals aren't completely understood. But enough is known so that we can select plants for breeding with considerably more assurance of success than our primitive ancestors did.

 

A factory is a place where a whole process of manufacture or production takes place, raw materials go in to a factory, and the finished product comes out. The word factory is shortened from the original Manufactory.

 

In effect your kitchen is a factory where meals and snacks are produced, schools are education factories and your back garden can be seen as a factory where plants are grown from scratch.

 

So the next time you read about cannabis growers in your newspaper, or see something about it on the TV, then remember that the language they use is purposely chosen to fool the ignorant, but now you have read this article you are not one of them are you?

 

Author: Norris Nuvo

http://norrisnuvo.co.uk

 

norrisnuvo is a writer, a graphic artist, a video producer and a medical cannabis user. He is 57 years old and is housebound in South Wales, as a result of suffering the painful (and incurable) condition hidradenitis suppurativa

 

Chat with Norris Nuvo, writer's Red Dragon (Soft Secrets, High Times, Weed World) and Lazystrain (Soft Secrets), and other European/American cannabis users by signing into the Cannabis Lobby Forums.

 

 

Author: Norris Nuvo

Date: 2 February 2009

Source: Canna Zine Cannabis News

http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/20090201849/cann...-the-media.html

[Naycha]

A good example of the way propagandists use certain language to demonise cannabis.

[mull]

Well written Norris