genetically modified cannabis

[white_cluster]

Well its bound to happen soon, genetically modified cannabis, monsanto are probably working on removing the genes for THC prodution for commercial hemp crops.

 

So what do you guys think of GM marijuana??

 

Imagine it, it really could make the cannabis of the future 25x more potent than the cannabis of the past. Valuable medicinal strains could be made that have very specific cannaboid ratios, and strains that produce that THCV shit that SA sativas have.

They could make strains which grow no head leaf, and only require fan leaf removal to manicure. They could probably make high yielding, no stretch indicas with full on sativa style high's. White decorative cannabis with low chlorophyll levels (useless, but cool). limitless fucking possibilities.

 

That would obviously be nice right???

 

You cant say that you cant fuck with gods work, because cannabis we smoke is not made by god. The original organism was, but cannabis would definately not be the way it is today if it hadn't have been selectively bred by man. All smoking cannabis is just wild hemp thats been selectively bred. No marijuana comes from nature.

 

Anyway, I'm actually strongly against GM cannabis, I just thought I'd point out some of the good bits, because most people find the idea of GM immoral and would go into it without thought.

 

what do you guys reckon???

[Guest Urbanhog]

I know its not impossible, but it wouldn't surprise me if it will happen soon, and thats one thing makes me worried about total legalisation of cannabis, the big tobacco companies might start growing GM weed, I mean look at Tasmania where the Government allows farmers to grow opium, they all almost viritually GM opiums now. But at the same time, it might be good for the pharm/chemical companies processing weed for mj medications for medicial mj users, maybe good maybe not. I have no idea.

 

GM weed will open a lot of dangerous doors and risks to both the genetics and personal growers and the like.

 

Urbanhog

[Ferre]

I dunno to be honest, all I know is that something inside me says it's un natural and to stay away from it. It's a feeling I have and not funded on knowledge but I'm used to listen to my intuition, untill now it's never been wrong and it never lies to me. for this reason alone I don't want to experiance it myself. I'll never touch GM weed, like I only eat natural food, never any colorants or any other additives, pure biological and it is no difference with the cannabis I consume, I use cannabis for recreational, religious as well as medical reasons so I only use it when it's natural, I grow biological(hydro) myself, In my opinion what we allready did with all the crossing and "manipulating" the strains is already a huge step in the cultivation of the plant but manipulating the genes is a little scary to me, they don't even know what effects it will have with the tons of GM corn, rice and other stuff that's on the marked right now. I for one am not eating anything with manipulated genes. and when organisations like Greenpeace are warning for it it won't be any good....I think.

[pipeman]

hey tboat, if you're that worried about your health you shouldn't be smoking at all.

 

Personally, I just use cannabis to get high, so if it can be genetically modified to do that better I'm all for it.

[Mr Putard]

The earth is one big hot house... Take some other species that have been GM'd... scottish trout... they gm'd these fish to grow 10 times the rate of thier natural counterparts.. and they were much less fussy about what they ate... Now put these into the wild... what happens? I'd think that the naturally evolved ones become extinct.. some other species extinct as well.. disease and other organisms come in and take over the food chain from the displaced ones...and the whole evolution process starts over... wow..

 

This dna stuff... it's just ticket tape that's fed into machines that read it which in turn pass it on to other machines that join it or split it or use it to create other molecular parts or, use it as instructions to make other molecular parts.. it's got four letters... the combinations of these four letters program our bodies.. it becomes an empty vessel that is filled up with lifes experiences.. those four letters are much the same as bytes in computers.. except bytes have powers of two.. they can be in one of two positions... dna comes in powers of four... each can be in one of four positions or states... well.. what if dna had more than four letters?? That is exactly the sort of shit they are doing now in a university in USA.. what if we could add say another two letters to the dna helix rope? what if you could fool the molecular machines in cells into reading the extra letters?? well..you could make new celular machines, that's what you could do.. imagine all the life on earth today... in all it's diversity.. then multiply that by four for each letter you add to the dna helix.. I don't think it's like four times as many species as much as it would 4 times more wierder creatures... remember aliens? that is exactly the kind of creature you could create by adding more letters to the dna helix..

 

remember the fish and the hothouse? well.. what if there was a computer so fast and powerfull that it started out simulating dna? this thing would in fact create a virtual cell... version one.. version two would do much more interesting things such as simulate how cells interact with other and external systems... like viruses and other things like inorganic substances... take this to version three and version four... we're starting to get out of the microscopic world and into individual people and the biosphere.. here there will be computers and sensor powerfull and small enough to simulate everything.. from the wheather right down to your dna..and what it's doing.. only then.. only then.. should they start gm'ing natures handiwork..

 

But lets get back to reality.. what are they doing now in labs and universities around the world now? Well in the last few months I have read two news stories that blew me away... both were very closely related and both were in america... first one was that a group of four scientists downloaded the dna code for a polio virus from the internet.. then they took thier lab chemicals and started mixing.. it took about a month to recreate the dna from the information found on the net... then they added some enzymes and stired...what they ended up with was some viable polio virus.. real live virii that could maim you that were mixed up from nothing more than common lab chemicals... wierd? what about this one... another group that is in the same kind of field have created the worlds first dna writer... dna writer?? wow.. so now there's no need to store dna anymore... all you need is to have it analized and the information stored in a computer... what took that team of four a month to do now only takes about a week in this new machine.. this is incredable... I mean.. say you lost all your teeth.. not too far down the track it will be possible to go to your doctor/dentist and get an injection... then you'll grow new teeth... how will they do this? simple.. when you went in for your first appointment they'll give you a once over... then ask you to come back for an injection... or give it to you the same day... meanwhile they'll download your dna information from thier database... and another genome for a virus that will be compatible to your state of health and get the computer to process the genetic instructions that the virus will deliver to the cells in your gums, stimulating the new teeth growth process..

[Guest]

GUhHH that's some freaky stuff, Mr. Putard.

 

Nice post, though ... very informative.

 

Ever extracted pure DNA? Always thought it was kinda suss how that stuff looked like a glob of spunk...

[Mr Putard]

ok wanker pranker... and how cum you didn't point out how I made a booboo? that's five times and six times now with those 2 extra dna letters they have hidden in some lab nowdays.. powers of 6... wow.. awesome goop that..hehe

[Guest weekprik]

interesting points, but wasnt this the same arguement of hydro vs soil grown, isnt hydro GM the plants anyways??

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

The GM fish issue is a very strong arguement agaianst GM, and personally I hate the "unknown" quantity of it all. But fish have always suffered the release of species in the wrong area, and many species have suffered extinction and hybridisation, long before Gm fish were ever dreamt of. Simple displacement of fish species is as much an issue as GM. That's due to the nature of the environment of fish.

 

But in plants, things are different to some exent. Some plants at least.

 

Remember, I don't hold to GM anything, and think a carte blanch attitude toward it is insane, but thinking of the reason behind the GM hemp is very pursuavive. We all know the impact that legal growing of hemp would have on the environment, especially sparing the destruction of natural stands of forests, and hopefully the very end of cotton farming.

 

I'd love to see the return of hemp to even the rope industry, let alone the plethora of other benifits. The uses, and the cesation of massive water use and chemical use in cotton make it worth considering. Pot being a geurilla type endevour anyway, means that cross polination is so unlikely it's not worth factoring. As it's been pointed out, there is no interefering with "god's work" on this, as there isn't any origianl potent natural occuring grass to loose as far as I'm aware. It's all been modified by selection.

 

This is the case with all Brassicas, they all originated from just one, that is no longer with us, and who'd want it? Or sweet corn, it's been genetically modified for 60 years or more now. It's one of; possibly the first seed to be exposed to radiation to creat the final product. It takes years of breeding to create the next year's release of sweet corn, and is as much a frankestein plnt as anything they'll do with grass.

 

One thing that scares me, is the cross species GM stuff. Where they'll insert the gene of a fish into a plant or some such thing. It's such a huge complex issue, but as someone that right up unti I read this about GM grass was a strong opponent to GM anything (except sweet corn); I'm prepared to hold my thoughts back a bit until I hear the final arguement on the issue of GM weed.

 

rob

 

PS. unless Imissed it, GM Papaver Somniferer (opium poppy) has been stopped in Tas. Tom might be able to throw some light on this, if he's lurking around. I left there a couple years back with an intense interest on the issue, and although they are still experimenting on Glaxo/Gov. stations, i thought the regular feilds were simply species selection.

 

I really don't mean to cause an arguement, that's just the impression I got from the propaganda I read when down there. There was a very strong and full representaion of the communtiy against GM poppies, that is for sure.

 

Their poppies do containup to 11 times more morphine than the same plants in other countries, and the other extreme is that some (visually inseperable) contain almost no morphine. Those however contain massive amounts of Thebaine, to make oxycodone. So it is a very strong break from conventional poppies, no doubt. And being one of the people that beinift from all this, I find it hard to critisize on the basis that the Persian White opium poppy has possibly been altered for all time.

 

Although that's rather extreme (altering the strain for all time), so long as the yanks don't succeed in wiping out the feilds of them in Nth. Europe and further east; in their thinly veiled UN attempt to cripple the opium trade there. I'm almost certain the base plant for the Tas. strain is Persian White, or a very close relative of it. Whatever it is, itself being a modified poppy to start with, it's hard to difine where to draw the line.

Edited July 12, 2003 by RobbieGanjaSeed

[syk613]

Wow this is such an interesting topic, I was just going to post a question along these lines. IN regards to GM pot depending on the alteration I would not be unhappy about smoking it but I would only eat it if it was TGA/FDA approved. A relatively simple expt. would be to delete the genes that produce the proteins that catalyse the production of the antagonistic cannabinoids ie the forms of THC that block the receptors to the agonist, it would have a similar effect to an isomerisation reaction but not the same (I think this is the reaction that is used ) however there would be no need for oil extraction. This is obviously already being done or something similar as stated above ppl are already lowering the THC content so why can't it be raised just as easily however I havn't read any papers on this so this is pure speculation. What would you like to change genetically about mj? If at all.

The only problem is that if it did get loose it may kill some small animals but strong weed from all the growers around Aust hasn't produced any wild feilds of hydro type mj that I have seen so I think the only real problem maybe outdoor growers and perhaps some small animals have already died from an overdose like the child that ate mj laced meal and had to be rudhed to hospital when respiration and heart rate fall dramatically, ie acute parasympathetic nervous system the opposite to the reflex, fight or flight, which can gives a large adrenaline rush and many other effects.