cannabisnews.com: DNA Database Tracks Pot Trafficking










  DNA Database Tracks Pot Trafficking

Posted by CN Staff on July 20, 2003 at 09:18:46 PT
By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer 
Source: Associated Press 

Meriden, Conn. -- State forensic scientists are compiling a DNA database to track the nation's marijuana distribution network. It is built upon two principles: Genetic material does not lie, and drug dealers always grow the most potent marijuana possible.In three years scientists at the state Forensic Science Laboratory have mapped the genetic profile of about 600 marijuana samples taken from around New England. As the database expands, scientists foresee a new way for investigators to trace the drug from grower to smoker.
Using a single marijuana bud seized anywhere in the world, police would be able to quickly deduce whether a suspect is a homegrown dope dealer or part of an international cartel.The success of the DNA database hinges upon a cultivation technique drug dealers use to keep only the best, most potent marijuana on the street.Waiting for marijuana seeds to grow into plants takes too long for high-level dealers who move thousands of pounds at a time, police say. Instead dealers usually plant cuttings from their most potent plants.That results in a shorter growing period and ensures top-quality drugs in every harvest. But it also means an entire marijuana crop is comprised of just a few plants, cloned over and over. Genetically those plants are identical.An officer who makes a drug bust in Connecticut might normally have no idea, however, that the pot came from the same harvest as a load seized on a California highway.While small-scale marijuana operations are local, top-level drug cartels are international. Breaking up a basement drug business is often as easy as getting one buyer to confess. Infiltrating a major drug cartel is not so simple."It's next to impossible, unless you have a good informant, to know the size of that kind of an organization," said Sgt. Lilia Gutierrez, a narcotics officer in El Paso, Texas, where authorities in February seized 12,000 pounds of marijuana coming across the Mexican border.A few months before that bust, federal agents in San Diego, Calif., seized 10 tons of dope in what is believed to be the largest marijuana bust in history."Relatively few of the drugs that cross into San Diego remain in San Diego," said Michael Turner, special agent in charge of the city's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. Turner said marijuana that crosses the California border can turn up in cities like Detroit and Chicago.The database being developed in Connecticut is not nearly complete enough to begin tracking that effect. But Heather Miller Coyle, a Connecticut forensic scientist, said the state plans to request a renewal of its $340,000 federal grant early next year. If the grant continues, she hopes federal agencies will begin sending their samples for analysis."We are seeing correlations," Coyle said. "Correlations between individuals and correlations between locations."Research assistant Eric Carita is responsible for bringing the genetic signatures into a searchable database. On his computer screen each sample looks like a stock market chart, punctuated with distinct peaks and valleys.A computer program converts that plot into a long, unique string of ones and zeros. If the computer matches that number to one already in the system, the samples are identical.Officials hope the effort will pay off in the courtroom. A court case pending in Connecticut Superior Court will be the state's first attempt to get marijuana DNA admitted as evidence. Police have not laid out the details of that case, but scientists say DNA data suggests that two drug operations were actually part of one organization.Coyle said she hopes that courtroom acceptance of human DNA evidence will make it easier to introduce plant DNA data. Scientists can even print out the DNA plots from Carita's computer and show a judge or jury that two samples are identical.There are hurdles. While a genetic match can nearly guarantee that a suspect was at a crime scene, a plant DNA match does not by itself prove that two growing operations are related. When combined other evidence, however, officials hope DNA data can help eliminate reasonable doubt."If they keep cloning (pot plants), there's no way around this," Coyle said.The DNA mapping technique cannot be used to track more dangerous designer drugs like cocaine and heroin. Though both are plant-based narcotics, drug synthesis isolates the mind-altering chemicals and the organic material is eliminated.Forensic experts believe efforts like this represent the future of forensic science, which for years have been focused on the analysis of human evidence like blood, semen and hair."We don't know all of the frontiers yet," said Kenneth E. Melson, president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the U.S. Attorney for Virginia. "As our experience and capabilities increase, forensic science can be used any number of areas we haven't even thought of yet."Not everyone is convinced that marijuana dealing should be the cutting edge of forensic science."It's a huge, monumental waste of taxpayer dollars," said Allen St. Pierre, executive director that National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation.Law enforcement officials, however, believe a genetic database could give police another advantage over creative drug dealers, who have concocted some ingenious growing and trafficking techniques."Certainly, if they're able to do enough fingerprinting to tell that this load came from same field as another load, we can begin to show patterns and trends," said Turner, the federal agent."If they could do it, it'd be one more tool in the arsenal."Source: Associated PressAuthor:  Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press WriterPublished: Sunday, July 20, 2003Copyright: 2003 Associated Press Related Articles & Web Site: NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Technology Could Identify Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16811.shtmlDNA Profiles Link Dope To Its Source http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16804.shtml

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Comment #9 posted by FoM on July 25, 2003 at 12:05:03 PT
Here's a Related Article
New Frontier for Forensics: http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030725.wdope0725/BNStory/International/
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Comment #8 posted by Dan B on July 21, 2003 at 02:20:04 PT
Most Potent Possible
"It is built upon two principles: Genetic material does not lie, and drug dealers always grow the most potent marijuana possible."O, how many wish the latter were true?Dan B
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 20, 2003 at 13:18:19 PT

Petard 
A Peach Pot Tree! That sounds interesting! 
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Comment #6 posted by Petard on July 20, 2003 at 13:09:22 PT:

Beginning of Gene Mapping
Like the article alluded to, forensics use of DNA led to gene mapping. Gene mapping led to gene modification. Let the Fed do all the hard work of mapping the cannabis DNA then we can take the info and use it to modify "normal" plants to produce THC and related cannabinoids. A nice lawn of "Bermuda Grass" could result, something like in the CaddyShack movie of a cross between Kentucky Blue and AK-47 that you can cut by day, smoke at night. Maybe even a Peach/Pot tree or it could give a whole new meaning to Rosebud's. My guess is only a short segment or 2 of DNA would be required and there are several microbes already in use that, through plasmids, transfer DNA.
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on July 20, 2003 at 12:59:22 PT

I'm in the same battle as this mother actually
For the last 15 years I have been taking care of a niece who has schizophrenia. She never in her life smoked pot. She was first diagnosed while serving in the military. The stress of military life can bring it out in some people they say. But nobody blames the military for causing it.I have been taking care of her since she was discharged, and now with a combination of medication and a good family and community support group, she is living an independent adult life, doing well on her medication, and has completed a certificate in library studies at a local community college.What mentally ill people need is a good community support network and a family that doesn't try to force them to become sane through self-discipline.It's a very hard thing for a young person to cope with, a chronic illness that destroys their social interactions and makes it hard to keep friends and develop intimate relationships.Physical illnesses don't leave young people as isolated and feeling hopeless as mental illnesses can leave them.We really need more and better treatment programs for the mentally ill. Schizophrenia can be conquered, but not just by medication alone. Family and community support is essential.Every dime they spend chasing down potheads would be better spent on funding community support groups so that young people who are newly diagnosed have a peer social network and a professional counseling network they can develop and rely upon when the feeling of hopelessness mounts.
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Comment #4 posted by afterburner on July 20, 2003 at 11:55:55 PT:

Re: Comment #1
Sadly, Andrew's medication never fully controlled his illness. He would drink alcohol, interrupting the efficacy of the drugs and, his mother believes, was still smoking cannabis regularly.
He was self-medicating with a host of chemicals and substances! Why blame cannabis?Several interesting articles were posted on another thread regarding causes and therapies for schizophrenia and autism (childhood schizophrenia), including infection and other causes listed there: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread16890.shtml#32ego transcendence follows ego destruction, let's talk it up folks.
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on July 20, 2003 at 11:12:35 PT

She killed her own son
Paranoid schizophrenia is now know to be passed genetically through the mother.There is also a possibility that this genetic weakness is coupled with exposure to a cold or flu virus during pregnancy to produce the actual brain damage that causes thee symptoms of the illness.This would explain the highly curious fact that most paranoid schizophrenics are born in the spring. Flu season commonly occurs during the winter.This strong seasonal variation in birth dates of schizophrenics, plus evidence of viral DNA that has been in schizophrenics, suggests that mothers with an inherent weakness in a particular gene expression, who contract a certain kind of cold or flu during pregnancy, give birth to a child with a high likelihood of becoming schizophrenic as an adult.
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Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on July 20, 2003 at 10:57:35 PT

They're obsessed
with keeping their drug war industry going, at any expense to the taxpayers.

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Comment #1 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on July 20, 2003 at 09:56:18 PT

Here comes another one...
"Cannabis Killed My Son" is the headline in the East Anglian Daily Times: http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/news/NewsStory.asp?Brand=EADOnline&Category=News&ItemId=IPED16+Jul+2003+22%3A28%3A06%3A790
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