cannabisnews.com: Local Pot Smoker Snubs Ottawa's Medicinal Dope





Local Pot Smoker Snubs Ottawa's Medicinal Dope
Posted by CN Staff on July 09, 2003 at 14:12:42 PT
By CBC News Online Staff
Source: CBC
Winnipeg -- A local medicinal marijuana user is giving the thumbs down to Wednesday's announcement from Health Canada that the government will provide authorized users with pot to smoke. Andy Caisse is one of 12 Manitobans who have been authorized to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. Caisse, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 10 years ago, smokes about a 100 grams of marijuana a month to control tremors and stimulate his appetite. 
He says the announcement today that the government will provide authorized users pot has some problems – for example, he says, the government's pot has only 10 per cent THC content. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the active ingredient in marijuana. "The percentage of the THC? That's a joke! The higher the level is, it's a little bit better quality," he explains. "It's just that they don't know how to probably water it [down]. Who knows?" Caisse says there is pot on the streets with a THC level of 26 per cent. Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan announced today that the government would provide the marijuana from a plant in Flin Flon. She says 50 kilograms is ready and available to go. A 30-gram bag will cost $150. Caisse says he won't partake in the program, as he has a designated grower who supplies him with his pot already. Medical Marijuana: http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/medical_marijuana.htmlSource: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Published: July 09, 2003Copyright: 2003 CBCContact: letters cbc.ca Website: http://www.cbc.ca/Related Articles & Web Sites:Canadians for Safe Accesshttp://www.safeaccess.ca/The Medical Marijuana Missionhttp://www.themarijuanamission.com/Critics Give Government Plan Mixed Reviewshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16800.shtmlFlin Flon Mine Questions Pot-Growing Futurehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13844.shtmlPotency of Government Marijuana Questioned http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12862.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by BigDawg on July 10, 2003 at 09:00:47 PT
Interesting point
"If the cannabis profiling technique does prove to be an effective tool in investigations and in the courtroom, dealers may switch to selling hashish."We can already thank the DEA for spurring the move towards more potent cannabis for growing indoors in smaller spaces. Next we move away from the plant material altogether and move towards hash... an even more potent form.
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Comment #7 posted by 312 on July 09, 2003 at 17:03:37 PT
New Scientist Article
DNA profiles link dope to its source19:00 09 July 03Forensic scientists in the US are applying DNA fingerprinting methods to the cannabis plant. They say the technique, which is being used to create a database of DNA profiles of different marijuana plants, will help them to trace the source of any sample."It links everybody together: the user, the distributor, the grower," says the database's creator, Heather Miller Coyle of the Connecticut State Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden. "That's the real intent of it, to show it's not just one guy with a little bag of marijuana, but it's a group of people."A method for spotting the tiniest traces of marijuana, based on detecting DNA unique to cannabis chloroplasts, has already been developed in the UK (New Scientist print edition, 7 August 1999). But the profiling method, based on the same principles as DNA fingerprinting of people, can distinguish between closely related cannabis plants (Croatian Medical Journal, vol 44, p 315).In a case awaiting trial in Connecticut, prosecutors plan to use cannabis DNA profiles to show that two apparently separate cannabis growing operations were actually linked. The two operations, in different parts of the state appeared separate until analysis of the plants revealed that some had identical DNA fingerprints, showing that the growers were sharing material. "From the investigative point of view that was phenomenal," says Timothy Palmbach, director of scientific services at the laboratory.Potent plants The big difference between human and plant DNA fingerprinting is that in people, each fingerprint is almost certainly unique to one person. So if a crime scene sample matches a person's profile, there is little doubt that it came from that individual.In plants, by contrast, identical clones are easily created by taking cuttings, a method growers often use to perpetuate potent strains of dope. So showing two samples have matching DNA profiles does not by itself prove they come from the same grower, let alone the same plant. But Palmbach says that growers tend not to give away cuttings of their best plants, so linking samples in this way is an important lead for investigators and will still be useful in tracing samples."What growers have done to get more potent plants has played right into our hands," says Palmbach. And if several matching profiles are found in separate samples, the chances are high that they are somehow linked.Terrorist ties Coyle is establishing a database of DNA profiles from hundreds of marijuana samples seized in Connecticut. "We want to track how many varieties are out there, what the trends in distribution are, the probability that a plant can be related to another," says Palmbach. The database is being extended to include samples from all over the US and the rest of the world. "We invite anyone to send us samples," says Coyle.Exactly how law enforcement agencies will apply the method remains to be seen. If a link can be established between a user and a grower or dealer, casual users might find themselves in deeper trouble than they bargained for. "If you're buying marijuana from somebody with terrorist ties, it could be traced back to that person," warns Gary Shutler of the Washington State Patrol's crime laboratory division.On the other hand, he says, where medical uses of marijuana are legal, the technology could help characterise strains with the desired medicinal properties. Several US states have voted to legalise the medical use of cannabis, though these efforts are being fought by federal authorities.The technology will not help police investigating the production or sale of highly processed or synthetic drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy. Nor does the team think it would work with hashish, which is made from resin exuded by cannabis plants, as not enough cellular material can be recovered. If the cannabis profiling technique does prove to be an effective tool in investigations and in the courtroom, dealers may switch to selling hashish.Sylvia Pagán Westphal
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Comment #6 posted by AlvinCool on July 09, 2003 at 15:23:00 PT
Marinol
This is a theory on Marinol. Several sources have indicated that the dosage seems to be variable. One time it may work fine, another nothing and yet a third reporting of marinol dropping people to the floor. The floor model, the one Walters seems convinced people want badly, is the one people that have used marinol say they hate the worst. I digress. My thought is that, as FoM states, it isn't just THC. With the absence of the other natural elements, in cannabis, THC may look for a substitute. I believe even the government agrees that everyone's brain develops cannaboids that are very similar to the cannaboids in cannabis. The cannaboids, in cannabis, activate other functions in the body and brain that work in conjunction with THC to develop a very stable and healthy body condition in that causes extreme relaxation, if desired, or increased dexterity. I’ve always liked the ability to focus on one thing, but hate it when I’ve lost the train of thought and I spin through to another idea I had been thinking of weeks earlier. People think the short-term memory loss they talk about is real but actually it simply isn't understood. I believe you find it again when you use marijuana because of the interaction of THC and cannaboids, making your brain… say… write at a different chemical level. You can access most of them from a normal mode but when you used cannabis again you would get the entire memory thread in what I refer to as the “panoramic mode” since you get so much more information about the thought you “ran through” last time. Commonly referred to as “brain farts”. These are waves of ideas that you have gone over before and your brain before and probably some new ones. This is why over 90% of all computer IT style people admit to having used cannabis at least once. The benefit from that experience is that people can remember enough of a changed “brain fart” that they make breakthrough’s in their fields. They wind up to usually be very technology savvy. I don’t necessarily mean fixing technology or programing technology. It could be using technology. Think about the stiff people you know who never used cannabis and can’t usually figure out a simple excel sheet or word document. The fuddle around because they don’t have the ability, provided by cannabis, to incorporate new “concepts”. They can learn facts but not concepts. 
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Comment #5 posted by 312 on July 09, 2003 at 15:00:37 PT
Article from New Scientist
Forensic scientists in the US are applying DNA fingerprinting methods to the cannabis plant. They say the technique, which is being used to create a database of DNA profiles of different marijuana plants, will help them to trace the source of any sample.
DNA profiles link dope to its source
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Comment #4 posted by 312 on July 09, 2003 at 14:52:09 PT
News story
Dope is my only hopehttp://www.prestontoday.net/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=73&ArticleID=556757do the poll :-Should marijuana be legalised for medical purposes?98% Yes
 
2% No
 
0% Don't know 
poll
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on July 09, 2003 at 14:26:24 PT
Commonsense 
I have never understood the THC percentage issue. With herbal medicine the medicinal properties vary because of many circumstances. Someone needs to create a Tilt-O-Meter. 
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Comment #2 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on July 09, 2003 at 14:26:04 PT
More money-wasting insanity
DNA Profiling used on Cannabis Plants: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/ns-dpu070903.php
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Comment #1 posted by Commonsense on July 09, 2003 at 14:21:54 PT
THC Content
I suspect that most people aren't getting pot with anywhere close to 26% THC in it. Law enforcement likes to make it look like all of today's "killer" weed is super strong and therefore somehow much worse than the pot from years back but in reality even the really good stuff today averages lower than 15% THC. 
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