Researchers are hard at work to map the DNA structure of marijuana plants in order to stop big time agriculture seed companies, such as Monsanto, from locking down exclusive patents on specific types of cannabis.
This past week, Mowgli Holmes, Chief Scientific Officer of Phylos Bioscience, the company monitoring the Cannabis Genome Project, told to those people in attendance of TechFestNW in Portland, Oregon that marijuana should be identified comparatively to another big American cash crop: Corn.
He stated that both of these commodities were domesticated by humans around 10,000 years ago, and that like corn, marijuana was spread “to every corner of the world,” pushing the scope of its biological pull, “to a point in the evolutionary landscape that it never would’ve gotten on its own.”
Much to the appreciation of the audience, Holmes then went on to ice details on one of his main objectives with the Cannabis Genome Project, which has its attention on learning more about the biology of marijuana, is to develop a genetic blueprint for cannabis that allows it to maintain its “public domain” status, and eventually “piss off Monsanto” by stopping them from marketing certain strain exclusively.
It has been suspected for decades that Monsanto has been creating genetically modified cannabis in a super secret lab somewhere in the United States in an attempt to aggressively position themselves in the market once the federal government finally allows farmers to cultivate marijuana.
There has even been talk within the past few years that Monsanto has GMO marijuana just sitting on a shelf waiting for the legalization green light, which is one of the reasons lawmakers are currently budding momentum behind the issue of legalization.
However, it does make sense that Monsanto would want to poise itself to profit from marijuana farms once the industry is permitted to grow on a bigger scale in the United States, yet, for now, the company suggests that cannabis is not something they are involved with.
“Monsanto has not and is not working on GMO marijuana. This allegation is an Internet rumor and lie,” says the company’s website.
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1 comment
What we do not need is for anyone to decide that they want to genetically alter this plant since its medical properties are natural to itself as it is. And besides someone with that old view that marijuana is evil might decide to try and alter it to destroy it. What we need at this point is legislation to preserve this as it is in order to have time to study all of its natural benefits and make good use of it.