Pubdate: Thu, 14 Apr 2016
Source: Metrowest Daily News (MA)
Copyright: 2016 MetroWest Daily News
Contact:  http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/619
Author: Steven S. Epstein

THE GENETICS OF CANNABIS, HEMP

Regarding your editorial, "Bringing textiles, old and new, to 
Massachusetts" (April 5), I write to point out, legislatures and 
bureaucrats may define hemp as cannabis having only trace amounts of 
THC, but nature does not. A plant that produces trace amounts of THC 
crossed with a plant that produces enough THC to be entheogenic 
produces viable offspring, because they are the same species, cannabis.

In his book, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on 
Drugs, Isaac Campos notes that sixteenth and seventeenth century 
cannabis brought to the new world by the Spanish "found its way into 
local medical-religious practice." Its genetics must have been 
programmed to produce enough THC to be entheogenic.

Due to reefer madness plant scientists are unable to grow test plots 
to determine if cannabis programmed to produce more than trace 
amounts produce more or better fiber, hurd and seed.

STEVEN S. EPSTEIN

Georgetown, Mass.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom