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How Hemp Got High: Scientists Map The Cannabis Genome

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 19, 2011 Growing, News

This hemp farm is located in Suffolk, U.K.

A team of Canadian researchers has sequenced the genome of cannabis sativa, the plant that produces both industrial hemp and marijuana, and in the process they’ve revealed the genetic changes that led to the plant’s drug-producing properties.

A simple genetic switch is likely responsible for the production of THCA, or tetrahyedrocannabinolic acid, the precursor of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, according to Jon Page, a plant biochemist and adjunct professor of biology at the University of Saskatchewan.

“The transcriptome analysis showed that the THCA synthase gene, an essential enzyme in THCA production, is turned on in marijuana, but switched off in hemp,” Page said.

The team compared the potent Purple Kush marijuana variety with “Finola” hemp, which is grown for seed production, according to Tim Hughes, co-leader of the project and a professor at the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

Protesters At Federal Courthouse Decry Medical Marijuana Raid

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 15, 2011 Growing, Medical, News

Jack Rikess

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

The ripples of the DEA’s early morning assault in Ukiah reached the Bay Area on Friday. Medical marijuana activists gathered in front of the San Francisco Federal Building to bring awareness to the crack-of-dawn raid Thursday on Mathew Cohen’s collective, Northstone Organics.

A faithful throng of about 40 showed up to show solidarity with the Northern Californian Collective. Shona Gochenaur of Axis of Love, bullhorn in hand, wondered where were the powerful politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Attorney General Kamala Harris who took medical marijuana campaign contributions but are nowhere to be found now. She continually pumped up the protesters while being interviewed by the local media stations.

The chants by the hearty few assembled of “Our Medicine, Our State” and “DEA, Go AWAY,” reverberated around the entrance of the building causing the suits and onlookers to pause as they saunter out for their lunches.

6,800 Marijuana Plants Seized In Unprecedented Sweep In WA

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 14, 2011 Growing, News

NWCN

Officers use a battering ram on a door as they raid one of more than 50 homes included in the marijuana sweep on Thursday

Dozens of indoor marijuana growing operations were raided in Washington state Thursday in a sweep involving hundreds of agents. Investigators said Clark County is one of the biggest pot-growing regions on the West Coast.

About 300 local, state and federal offices executed search warrants at more than 50 homes, reports David Krough of NWCN. Several arrests were reportedly also made in other states, leading the cops to around 150 pounds of processed cannabis at various locations in Clark County.

Breaking: DEA Raiding Medical Marijuana Grow In Mendocino

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 13, 2011 Dispensaries, Growing, News

Northstone Organics

This was the beautiful cannabis garden at Northstone Organics on August 3. As you read this, federal DEA agents are destroying these plants, and patients are going without the medicine they need.

Federal agents are reportedly raiding the garden of Northstone Organics, a pioneering participant in Mendocino County, California’s innovative “zip-tie” program to license medical marijuana gardens.

Mendocino County’s zip tie program, overseen by Sheriff Tom Allman, allows legal medicinal growers to purchase zip ties from the county to designate their plants as legal.

California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer denounced the raid as a “shameful and despicable” attack on California’s most successful legally regulated marijuana cultivation program.

“The DEA is doing nothing but encouraging lawlessness and disobedience to the law,” Gieringer said. “This is a victory for the Mexican cartels.”

Mother & Son Arrested: Growing Hundreds Of Marijuana Plants

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 12, 2011 Growing, News

WHEC

Diane Bielewicz, 61, of Nunda, New York, called police on her son for firing a gun in the house, but wound up going to jail herself for marijuana cultivation.

In what the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office is describing as one of the biggest marijuana growing operations they’ve ever seen, a New York mother and son were arrested for cultivating cannabis after the mother called police, saying her son was firing shots inside their home.

Deputies said they were called to the Nunda, N.Y., home of Diane Bielewicz, 61, after her son Joseph Bielewicz, 33, started firing a gun, reports Christine VanTimmeren at WHEC. When deputies got there about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, they said they found “hundreds” of marijuana plants growing inside the home, around the property, and in a state wildlife preserve just off their property.

Besides what they breathlessly described as “one of the most sophisticated growing operations they had ever seen” (Incidentally, ever notice how the cops describe every single busted grow as either “the most sophisticated ever” or “dangerously primitive”? Seems there’s no middle ground with these clowns), officers also found more than 20 weapons including shotguns, rifles and pistols.

Advocates Outraged By Governor’s Veto Of Hemp Farming Act

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 10, 2011 Growing, Legislation, News

Bhudeva

Hemp has been grown everywhere for thousands of years. It is only in the last 75 years that is cultivation has been irrationally outlawed in the United States.

Veto of SB 676 is a Huge Setback for California Farmers, Businesses and the Economy

Vote Hemp, the nation’s leading grassroots hemp advocacy organization, along with industry trade group the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) — both working to revitalize industrial hemp production in the U.S. — expressed “extreme disappointment” on Monday that California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed SB 676, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

After moving smoothly through the California Legislature with bipartisan support, the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Brown. The first hemp bill to land on Brown’s desk, SB 676 is the fourth bill since 2002 in support of hemp farming to pass the California Legislature, but all four met gubernatorial vetoes.

The bill would have established guidelines for farming the oilseed and fiber varieties of hemp, which are used in a myriad of everyday consumer products including food, body care, clothing, paper, auto parts, composites and building materials.

Website Aims To Connect Marijuana Dispensaries & Growers

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on October 3, 2011 Dispensaries, Growing

Berkeley Patients Care Collective

California dispensaries looking for a pure sativa like this Lambsbread now have help finding growers who have the strain in stock, thanks to CannCast.

How can medical marijuana growers know which dispensaries need their strains? And how can dispensaries know which growers have what they need?

This conundrum had frustrated Berkeley Patients Care Collective managers Erik Miller and David Bowers for 10 years. There was no reliable way for their medical cannabis dispensary to regularly get certain strains that patients needed. Waiting and wishing is sometimes all dispensary managers can do, while spending too much time with providers who don’t have the strains or quality that they want.

The Return of Panama Red: Legendary Marijuana Strain Is Back

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 29, 2011 Growing

All Photos: No Longer Sad

Whenever aging stoners gather around a burning bush and discuss the legendary strains of yore, it’s a sure bet that the mighty Panama Red will be mentioned. Along with Acapulco Gold, Panama Red was one of the first cannabis “brand names” that caught the imagination of the American public, becoming a, well, “hit” nationwide.

While hippies in the late 1960s thought that Panama Red was so strong because of the rain-forest climate in which it was grown, we know today that its legendary potency was due to genetics — and thank Jah, those genetics have been preserved for modern smokers to enjoy, despite the fact that the culture of cannabis in Panama was mostly blown away during the cocaine-fueled 1980s.

Medical Marijuana Grower Dazed After Big Federal Raid

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 29, 2011 Growing, Medical

KDRV

Here’s what the marijuana grow operation looked like before the DEA raided it on Tuesday

An Oregon medical marijuana grower is dazed and confused after federal agents searched his home, took his cannabis, and hauled it away in dump trucks.

James Anderson, 25, is part of a group of marijuana growers in Gold Hill who share a plot of land to collectively grow for their respective patients, reports Chris Conrad at the Medford Mail Tribune. “We are growing within our limits,” Anderson said. “Some of us are under.”

Drug Enforcement Administration agents, U.S. Marshals and a motley crew of local police officers pulled into his property at 9 a.m. on Tuesday to serve a search warrant, according to Anderson.

Marijuana: Plant, Drug, Or Medicine?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 28, 2011 Culture, Growing

Kym Kemp/Redheaded Blackbelt

By Jack Rikess

Toke of the Town

Northern California Correspondent

Driving down 101 South, I was listening to the radio returning home after four grueling days of being embedded with medicinal farmers as they get ready for autumn’s harvest. The challenge of bringing in this year’s crops has been as nerve wracking as Lindsay Lohan approaching a DUI checkpoint.

Between mold, mildew and a growing season that’s been as erratic as Charlie Sheen’s career, the typical farmer has been working about 26 hours a day since July. Your average Mendoite or Humboldtian, is dog tired and dragging from spraying, battling a fungal infestation from early morning to late at night that could possible overtake our agricultural base, affecting the production volume of some of our favorite crops like marijuana, food, and grapes.

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