GMO, Monsanto, and the future of cannabis?

[castout]

I have been watching MONSANTO for awhile.....if you have never heard of them, remember Viet Nam, and the pesticide AGENT ORANGE. Monsanto makes genetically modified organisms(GMO),and pesticides.
GMO is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. Organisms that have been genetically modified include micro-organisms such as bacteria and yeast, insects, plants, fish, and mammals.
Monsanto has deep ties to the GOVT.
Obama appointed Michael Taylor, as deputy commissioner of foods, and he was a former VP at Monsanto.
There are quite a few former Monsanto employees that now have positions in the Obama Administration.
Monsanto has also been implicated in the indiscriminate sale and use of RoundUp Ultra in the anti-drug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Of the some $1.3 billion of taxpayers' money earmarked for Plan Colombia, Monsanto has received upwards of $25 million for providing RoundUp Ultra.
Over the past century, global water supplies have been contaminated with the full gamut of Monsanto's chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup). So now the company, seeing a profitable market niche, is taking control of the public water resources they polluted, filtering it, and selling it back to the people.
After seeing all that Monsanto is allowed to do, because they also sue American farmers, who oppose the company, I am truly concerned about the what will happen with cannabis.
Will Monsanto be able to make GMC-genetically modified cannabis?
I have always been concerned about what happens, when BIG Pharma gets it's dirty paws on our plant.
Now, I am concerned about what will happen when BIG AGRIBUSINESS gets it's hands on our plant!!!!!!
Welcome to the very scarily controlled future!!!!!!

 

[yortbogey]

monsanto is just a mask for the devil

 

[zingablack]

the black plague will be remembered as a trivial illness once all the consequences of GMO foods come to surface. people will look back (if we survive) and shake our heads

 

[mtbazz]

Hate to tell you guys...but what we are seeing with GMO/Monsanto is probably the future of Cannabis should prohibition get repealed at the federal level...

You can also certainly guarantee patents being filed for many strains of weed...gov't regulation, certifications and permits being needed at the state level for growing/selling...

All the smaller (5k and under) indoor and outdoor growers will pretty much be shut down overnight...

Be careful what you wish for

 

[castout]

Monsanto is an awful company. My uncle passed away about 15 yrs ago, he was a Viet Nam veteran, and he had prostate and lung cancer, as well as a host of skin problems, facial tics, and other problems with his nervous system. He fought very hard to get Viet Nam vets, and Vietnamese citizens compensated for what happened to them, after exposure. He was pretty sick most of the time, and he said he KNEW he would die before he would ever see Monsanto take responsibility for the illnesses caused by Agent Orange. He used to tell us kids stories about how Monsanto was going to take over our agricultural industry, if they weren't stopped....we used to think he was so crazy, always railing against them. Boy oh boy....we should have listened, cause everything he said would happen, is coming to fruition. AGRIBUSINESS has taken over the food supply, and they have polluted the freshwater, and are now taking control of that polluted freshwater, and selling it back to us. WE SHOULD ALL BE VERY SCARED. Not just as growers, because believe me, they will take our plant, and genetically modify it....all of our amazing genetics will be lost.....BUT, because they have control of the food supply!!! That means they control us!!!!

 

[HempKat]

I doubt all our genetics will be lost. Sure on the commercial level that will happen and businesses like Gypsy's may have to worry or people growing for profit in a legalized future may have to worry but for all of us growing for ourselves and/or to help out a few others life will stay pretty much like it is now and our genetics will stay safe within that sub culture.

 

[castout]

Wanna bet...genetics will all be patented, by AGRIBUSINESS!!!!

 

[Tudo]

Aren't there already gmo seeds being used? How can you tell the difference?

 

[castout]

WHY ISN'T ANYBODY AS FREAKED OUT AS I AM? I can't believe that all the intelligent peeps here, have nothing to say. DO YOUR RESEARCH....these FUCKS are gonna be the future of OUR plant!!!!!

 

[TribalSeeds]

I always thought that headband could be GM

 

[noytered]

I have been watching MONSANTO for awhile.....if you have never heard of them, remember Viet Nam, and the pesticide AGENT ORANGE. Monsanto makes genetically modified organisms(GMO),and pesticides.

lol... so they have no connection to agent orange? You just threw that in there to make it seem like they did? lol

 

[HempKat]

Wanna bet...genetics will all be patented, by AGRIBUSINESS!!!!

Yes the stuff out there commercially will but the stuff going thru our circles it would be difficult, first they would have to get ahold of the exact same strains and then they would have to change it in some way to be able to claim it as there creation in order to patent it. You can't just take a plant from someone else's garden and then claim it as yours with exclusive ownership rights. Also patents are time limited you can't just keep a patent on something indefinitely so you control that segment of the market indefinitely otherwise there would be no such thing as generic versions of name brand prescription drugs.

Another point to consider is they're only going to be able to enforce that patent right in the commercial market. So those of us who continue to sell on the black market in a legal world will be doing so because we have something they don't have making us the only source for buyers wanting what we have. In that scenario I don't see our customers diming us out to Monsanto for patent violations nor do I see Monsanto going after what would be a very niche market within the overall cannabis market.

Now if your plan is to try to compete with Monsanto playing on the same field and by the same rules then yeah you're going to have a tough way to go and you'll pay a lot out just for all the right licensing and permissions and what not.

 

[castout]

noytered..

noytered..

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/03-2

 

[castout]

My Uncle Matty, died, retelling the horrors about agent orange, and Monsanto. We had to watch, as his skin literally chewed itself apart. We had to sit back, and watch the facial tics, the nerve pain, his teeth fall out, he died a shrivelled old man, loyal to his counrty, a true soldier, til the end. HE was not loyal to MONSANTO, or what they did to Vietamese farmers......he fought the Viet Cong, he refused to fught farmers, and he had to sit back and watch the"defoliation". That eventually killed him, and the US GOvt, didn't give a shit.

 

[castout]

Hempy, you know me, personally...this shit is real and it is bad........they are going to take our plant away. If the USDA farmers cannot grow their own wheat, why do you think, they will let us grow our own weed? You are far too intelligent to not educate yourself.

 

[castout]

more links

more links

http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/agent-orange-background-monsanto-involvement.aspx

 

[Dawn Patrol]

While I wouldn't call the current cannabis genetics market outright shady, I know I've personally been disappointed more than I've been satisfied by what I've paid for seed stock.

That said, I would encourage anyone that has the resources to make seed, and properly store the seed of any genetics they currently have in their possession to do so as I believe that preserving any decent genetics will be incredibly important over the coming years.

My feeling is that in a decade the scene will have changed dramatically. While HempKat has a point about black market grows, I think as legalized cannabis spreads across the country the black market will shrink as smokers opt for the convenience of legal herb despite the inevitable degradation of the commercial gene pool and the ensuing reduction in the quality of the smoke.

Initially I see it playing out much like the beer market did with mass acceptance of a significantly inferior product driven by unending marketing budgets, followed some time later by a move to "craft" cannabis which, like the current "craft" beer market, is quickly taken over by the large commercial interests plying their own "craft" offerings as they move to dominate any and all market segments.

I've personally experienced the changes in the black market over the last 40 years - the genetics of my youth have disappeared, never to be seen again and the rise of indica dominant strains as indoor cultivation became the norm.

It strikes me as strange that in a time when the country has never been more open about cannabis than it is now that (at least in my non med state) the vast majority of people that I encounter buying herb opt for the cheapest option available as long as it looks good in the bag and there is some marketable name for it.

There seems to be no real preference for the effect of the herb, everything is predicated on the bag appeal or the marketing. I believe a huge portion of the market will move to Agribusiness commercial offerings so preserving the genetics we have will be very important for the preservation of current strains and that ultimately these strains will move only to the high end connoisseur market segment and it's difficult to project if that will be a legal or illegal market. If Monsanto and the other agribusiness giants have their way, it will be an illegal market unless they control or have a significant piece of it.

 

[castout]

AGRIBUSINESS controls the food supply, from antibiotics for the beef supply, to seeds, to pesyicides that their seeds need, cause they are wek, to the water supply. You prolly had GMO food today...i know I did!!!!

 

[gh0stm0de]

I was happy to see peeps marching against monsanto, but, at the same time I can't help but look at it as pissing in the wind.. nontheless, if you do not try to achieve your goals in life, how will they ever come to fruition?

strong eat the weak, and money + (ambition/knowledge) = power in this world..

something like that..

 

[chives]

I know this thread has been more about Monsanto than GMO but came across this and thought of this thread

As another lefty and sciency person, I've had this frustrating conversation with probably half my friends by now. I think the fear of it stems primarily from a lack of understanding of what GMO actually is/does, so it's become a conversation around basic intro-level education more than anything else. It reminds me a lot of having to explain the concept of evolution to someone who fought against it but didn't understand what it actually claimed. At this point it goes basically like this:

GMO is a form of technology which allows scientists to take small segments of genetic code from one organism and insert them into the genetic code of another organism. These segments of code are responsible for producing certain characteristics in the original organism which it evolved naturally over millions or billions of year. This is a technology which could be used to create organisms that would then be used for good purposes, bad purposes, neutral purposes, etc. In this way it's no different than any other technology, in that it can be harnessed for the purposes of the user.

We have in fact been modifying plants and animals to suit our needs since the dawn of agrarian civilization, by selecting for agriculture which randomly mutates in a direction we find beneficial (bigger produce, more pest resistance, etc). The difference is that in the past we had to rely on the random nature of mutation and then pick the best, while with GMO we can intentionally grab genetic code which has already evolved in other ecological niches and use it wherever it makes sense.

So, what can we do with GMO?

Create healthier agricultural products. Inserting genes that code for the retention/production of nutrients like Vitamin A, β-Carotene, Iron, Iodine, etc would allow us to turn staple calorie-rich foods into healthier "superfoods".

Create more robust agricultural products. This could take the form of natural pest resistance (to drastically reduce the use of pesticides, which have harmful side effects), resilience in the face of droughts and temperature extremes (reducing waste), and longer lasting produce (reducing spoilage).

Boost yields in every dimension. More produce per land used, more produce per fertilizer used, more produce per water used, more food per CO2 expended by farming equipment, etc. To be clear, this is a green initiative. More food with lower footprint.

So, why do people fight against it?

Mansanto. This company gets a terrible name due to their business practices (creating expensive dependencies, suing farmers, aggressive IP litigation, etc). Unfortunately this negativity has bled over to GMO as a general technology, because they are such a huge name in the industry today. Think of it like cable companies... everyone hates their cable company, but it's not because we hate cable or internet, it's because we hate the poor customer service and obnoxious business practices of our company specifically. Today Monsanto is the big name in GMO, and they suck. But that doesn't mean GMO sucks.

Fear of unforeseen consequences. One common claim is that crop blights would do more damage resulting from lack of genetic diversity (the claim is often made that GMO crops will all be the same so they might all get killed off at once if the right disease hits). This one is particularly misguided in my mind because GMO is creating genetic diversity faster than we've ever had it before, and because it gives us tools to target and fight blights we've never had before. If we have to rely on the arduous and random process of natural mutation to increase genetic variance in our products, we are approaching the danger of crop blights with one hand tied behind our back.

Argument in favor of customer choice. The "natural living" idea is big and growing in western culture, and along with it things like all-organic, vegan, paleo, etc diets. One of the arguments against GMO from this side is that it will reduce their ability to chose a "natural" lifestyle as GMO products proliferate and become commonplace.

GMO as a technology could be intentionally used for nefarious purposes (engineering of more effective biological weapons, for example). This is completely separate from agriculture, though you will find some people that argue against researching GMO technology at all out of fear. This is not a viewpoint I hold.

The bottom line? GMO as a technology is not intrinsically good or bad. It has the potential to do very many good things and to avoid every one of the bad things depending on how it is implemented. It also has the potential to do just the opposite.

So, why do I support the concept of GMO? Besides all of the potential benefits of developing GMO agriculture I already listed, ultimately we live in a global society, which means we certainly aren't going to stop companies and governments around the world from developing and harnessing this technology whether we like it or not. So what do we do to prevent the Monsantos of the world from screwing us over? Throw ourselves into it head first and foster an environment of competition, innovation, and oversight/regulation. Embrace and invest in developing this technology for good, so that we can be healthier, feed more people around the world (not just empty calories, but nutrients as well), and do it all with lower impact to the environment.