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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Daily Climate reports that global warming is set to make Californian marijuana a lot stronger – if we let it happen.
According to the Daily Climate;
Global warming may give a minor twist to that classic hippie bumper sticker that quips “Acid rain: Too bad it’s not as much fun as it sounds.” Turns out a warming climate could boost the medicinal and psychoactive properties of plants including cannabis.
But that’s not all: Climate change will also open up higher elevations to growing weed clandestinely on public lands, a practice that’s putting increased strain on fragile ecosystems. Some say relaxed marijuana laws exacerbate the problem by bringing in more growers; others argue increased regulation and oversight will eventually lead to more responsible growing practices.
One prominent researcher who specializes in weed migration patterns in the face of climate change said marijuana grown outdoors will likely become stronger and require less water to thrive.
“If you go back to the times plants evolved on land, the average CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels were 1,000 parts per million; today it’s about 400,” said Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
I mean, can anyone think of an issue more likely to split the environmental movement asunder?
Yes the environmental movement care about CO2. But many of them also care deeply about ensuring people suffering severe chronic pain receive what may be a very effective treatment for their condition. Perhaps we can look forward to a change in outlook, a compromise, in which the environmental movement reluctantly embraces the possibility of a little more CO2 in the atmosphere, because of the humanitarian medical benefits it will provide.
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The logic is absurd. What’s good for all plants is of course also good for “bad” plants. Does that mean it’s bad?
Agree.
I knew CAGW couldn’t be all bad!!!
Yes the environmental movement care about CO2. But many of them also care deeply about ensuring people suffering severe chronic pain receive what may be a very effective treatment for their condition.
Ya…the ‘chronic pain’ of reality.
Stronger pot means less smoking to get high. This should be a good thing to people who really care about public health.
Yet another good reason to be in favor of letting global warming happen. If only it were true.
Outdoors one can grow one crop per year, with little control over deer, elk, people, FEDs, heat, frost, fungus, insects, wind, fire, hail, and so on. Plus CO2 is so very limited.
Indoors one can grow six crops per year, with nearly total control over the environment, including boosting CO2 levels by four times!
The only plus that outdoor growing has it that magnificent sun. You just can’t beat it.
I move my plants in and out.
Especially for morning sun on hot days.
I Shot the Sheriff
by Eric Clapton
Marihuana already has the most intensive hi tek agricultural methods and R&D of any crop . In CO , almost all commercial crops are grown in high CO2 environments at up to 100f temperatures , controlled humidity and tuned spectrum lighting . So CA is going to have a hard time competing in potency or yield with any outdoor crop .
The idea that more than an absolutely insignificant acreage will ever be “ecologically damaged” by MJ cultivation is absurd .
Finally. Somebody that makes sense.
There is a priceless interview in the Fresh Air archive with a person very, very familiar with the growing process in CO. As you say Bob, growing is done in large industrial buildings under very controlled circumstances.
What really got my attention was his description of going into one of these buildings. You don’t see any plants at all, just long corridors with doors, much like an office building. Behind each door is a roughly shipping container-sized “growing office” in which you find the plants, tended by a generally long haired “manager” in shorts, playing music that they think will enhance the growth of their plants.
One can only imagine the competitive lunch-time conversation among these “growth managers.” Such is the course of human evolution.
Just wait till traditional agriculture gets wind of this radical new methodology. The corn industry will be transformed! Delegations of young corn farmers trooping from NB to CO in tour busses to learn from the masters. The mind reels at the possibilities! The mind reels…
Not very accurate for a botanist. THC is not an insecticide. It is not widespread throughout the plant but concentrated in external organelles called trichomes. These tiny, mushroom shaped, sticky hairs are mostly located around the future seed parts. Pests get stuck in them if they get too close. They act more like a physical repellent. The trichomes would also redirect potentially harmful UV radiation away from any developing seeds.
Increased CO2 only seems to make crummy weed better. There isn’t much difference in potency for the best strains. However, they all grow much faster on much less water.
http://cdn5.theweedblog.com/wp-content/uploads//Trichomes-are-milky-white-.jpg
http://www.thcfinder.com/uploads/files/beautiful-trichome-image-thcfinder.jpg
http://wesmokeweed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/inside-trichome.jpg
As you wrote:
“Increased CO2 only seems to make crummy weed better. There isn’t much difference in potency for the best strains. However, they all grow much faster on much less water.”
Nothing more to add.
Thank you for the explanation.
No nonsense.
This is so cool dude.
Some perspective needed here. Potency refers to two different classes of substances in cannabis: cannabinols and cannabinoids. The cannabinols (only one of which is THC) get the consumer stoned. The cannabinoids OTOH don’t, but they are a very effective anti-inflammatory. The Git squeaks from experience here; he suffers from chronic arthritis.
We make a distinction in The Land of Under between hydro (high cannabinol) and bush tucker (high cannabinoids). Recent new strains of the latter can relieve severe pain without generating a stone. For some medical conditions there is no effective alternative to cannabis.
I strongly suggest that those taking an antagonistic view check out the result of following FDA/medical advice by consuming Vioxx.
http://www.drugwatch.com/vioxx/recall/
A close friend who eschewed MJ in favour of Vioxx suffered five heart attacks in a row. Fortunately he was not one of the more than 60,000 people killed by Vioxx.
You can use all the perspectives you want.
I have absolutely no objection for anybody to smoke, chew, eat or any other use of MJ.
However, the idea of this post is (was) that “a little more CO2” ………is simply nonsense.
The post is about pot, were you expecting enlightenment ?
Do you any, I mean any, peer reviewed studies that support your claim that pot has any medical uses whatsoever? Which studies show that it is safe and effective for the treatment of any disease?
Sorry about your friend but a lot of people who have never taken Vioxx have had multiple heart attacks.
Well there’s this http://preventdisease.com/news/10/120310_marijuana_cuts_tumor_growth.shtml
And this http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n307/a10.html
Plenty more here http://boards.cannabis.com/threads/granny-storm-crows-list.161539/
Just to get you started.
@ur momisugly Pete Wilson
Interesting links. Didn’t know about the Alzheimer’s link. Here in Tasmania there’s been a flurry of interest sparked by parents administering cannabis to their epilepsy afflicted children. These are kids whose seizures are not controlled by the standard medications. Given that the death rate of epileptics is 2–3 times that of the general populace, you’d think that the discovery would have been gratifying and to some it is, particularly the parents of those kids. But the do-gooderesses of this world apparently believe that it’s better to suffer and die than ingest cannabis. Go figure…
I can tell you that when you talk to your 3rd or 4th person who had cancer and had given up on everything and tried MJ as a last resort, only to be cancer free now, well, it has an effect on you. But when you have heard it from 10 or 11 people, then, it starts to get old.
So, hmmm, how would you do a double blind study on, say, cancer and MJ? People normally only try it as a last resort, after their Dr. told them that the main stream cures didn’t work and they are going to die.
Not sayin’ it works all the time, but it does sometimes.
I forgot what I was going to say.
🙂
THIS. The reason pot driving is safer than drunk driving is because pot smokers forget where they’re going, never in a hurry to get there.
Drunks will barrel down the freeway because they know exactly where they are going. Their intentions are clear it’s just the motor skill execution that is suspect .
Enter Paraquat and no rain…
…So the mexicans harvested quickly and stuffed it into empty fuel tankers to pass off the odor and taste (mid 80’s – can’t find it just now). They helped our gov’t poison folks.
CO2 is converted to cannabinols and cannabinoids!?
What wonderful news! What better way to store excess CO2? Environmentalists, (aka green loonies), along with many normal people should be thrilled!
“Turns out a warming climate could boost the medicinal and psychoactive properties of plants including cannabis.
But that’s not all: Climate change will also open up higher elevations..”
Typical reverse of reality. Just like tea, the superior grades grow at 800-2100 meters altitude. If “climate change” makes them grow faster, that will only reduce the quality:
http://tearroir.com/premium-loose-leaf-teas/high-atltitude-tea-getting-high-on-tea#.VVVFD5OumlE
“a warming climate could boost the medicinal and psychoactive properties of plants including cannabis.”
So don’t we need some warming first?
Some, perhaps, insight into MJ and brain damage (or not). Normally, my occasional posts here are under my given name, but on this occasion I’m going undercover so no one will accuse me of bragging. And in fact, the facts about to be presented are no credit to me, but to my careful choice of parents.
Born in 1945, my younger years were marked by being considered “gifted” even though I didn’t walk until 18mos. and didn’t speak until 2+ years. Parents were concerned about retardation. Read at 4, 1st grade at 5 and straight “A”s thru 8th grade. Physically and socially underdeveloped, however. Read a lot.
Iowa tests in 1959 and 1961 yielded 99% across the charts with one 97%. National Merit Scholar in 1962, one of four in my HS; talked my way into a first tier University, though my HS grades were only “B”s.
Flunked out in 1965 and joined the Army Reserve. Armed Forces Qualifying Test: 100. First week Army IQ tests showed a flat 131 on everything (not sure what that means, exactly, but the Army was impressed).
Returned to the same Uni later that year and did very well away from the College of Engineering. Fixed up the social and physical problems by getting a varsity letter, dating campus queens and becoming president of my fraternity. Life was good! Drank a good deal all along the way after 18, but didn’t start smoking tobacco until boredom in the Army had left it is as the only available entertainment…
Though I’m slightly ashamed of having done so, in Spring 1967 I took the LSAT for a brother (for a lousy $50)and scored 673 on his behalf, good enough to get him into the Law School. Later that year, I was introduced to MJ, loved it and smoked on a daily basis for the next 22 years.
Called to active duty in 1968, I spent a year as an EM at Headquarters Berlin, and returned to finish college in late 1969. Graduating in December, I took the LSAT for myself, scoring a 748 (99.97 percentile), but was talked out of attending law school by my employer’s “offer I couldn’t refuse,” as he put it.
Smoked MJ throughout the next ten years of a very successful career in a field best described as a cross between engineering and architecture, eventually leaving with an associate to form an identical business that was equally successful for the next twenty years. In 1980, Omni magazine published what they billed as the “world’s hardest intelligence test.” It had no time limits, no restrictions on research or consultation. My business partner tackled it with me, though he eventually dropped out. I finished it, stoned most of the time, and submitted. Score: 159, missing 4 Sigma by one point.
Smoked the devil weed for another twenty years then quit because I could no longer tell the difference between being straight and stoned; never returned to regular smoking although I’ll rarely still indulge if friends show up with some. Don’t miss it. But have also continued to drink (sometimes too much).
In 2001, living in Hawaii and working a failed business that I had thought would make us rich, I noticed an ad that sought potential teachers who didn’t have education degrees. I took the test and finished it with two hours left. Eventually, Hawaii responded with a teaching offer, but by then we had moved to our current location.
As far as I can tell habitual marijuana use has had absolutely no impact on my cognitive abilities and I would use it tomorrow if offered, but won’t bother looking for it. BTW, although I probably richly deserved a DUI or two, along the way, it never happened. I got pulled over once smoking a joint, but the cop ignored it and gave me a simple speeding ticket (also my only ticket, ever). Experience taught me that driving drunk is just plain dangerous, driving a bit stoned, not at all. I’d guess most cops would agree.
OTOH, it’s fair to say that all, without exception, of the most regrettable and shameful incidents of my 70 year lifespan to date have taken place while intoxicated. You be the judge between the two.
“Awhiz
May 14, 2015 at 11:44 pm
Experience taught me that driving drunk is just plain dangerous…”
Some European studies suggest, these days, driving while using a mobile phone (And I see it every day here in Australia, even drivers drivers of big rigs) is much much more dangerous.
1000ppm, surprised the world didn’t come to an end.
I have tried “magic mushrooms”, MJ and something called “chat” in Ethiopia. Mushrooms and chat had no effect on me (Or maybe I simply did not eat enough). But when I tried MJ in New Zealand, I did get a buzz! Maybe it was omething to do with the sun and how potent the plants grow there. What I found more interesting was that, even though I am not a smoker, I could properly smoke the NZ MJ without coughing. With regards to any damage, mental or otherwise, I am fine *WIBBLE*!
And while “authorities” worry about MJ, sugar is a bigger problem in terms of poisoning people.
@Patrick
It’s better known as Khat and must be used when fresh (within 48 hours of harvest). Cathinone, one of the major psychoactive components of khat, degrades to cathine, which does not produce the desired effects. It’s similar to amphetamine in its effects. The Git prefers sauvignon blanc 😉
I guess they’ll have to update the “Reefer Madness” film describing this newly discovered ruthless cycle of reefer and climate change.
Reefer causes climate change which causes more reefer usage which causes more climate change which causes more reefer usage which eventually leads to pizza consumption abuse which then leads to a pepperoni shortage tumbling world markets into a tail spin leading to WWIII which then leads to a shortage of reefer and mass depression where everyone dies but the insects survive and evolve into super intelligent beings who populate across the galaxies. Which might not be so bad, in a way, kind of.
Excuse me, that was the last toke, have to visit my local friendly happy-land dispensary.
Ah, I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning…
Actually, there is some scientific research on the effects of pot that I remember from a study done in the 60s in Jamaica among field workers. They classified “light” smokers as 1-6 joints per day, medium, 6-12 and heavy, more than 12. The results were clear:
The Jamaican field workers smokers were happier, worked harder and got less done.
🙂
@ur momisugly markopanama
Dunno what you’ve been smoking, but that study discovered that the smokers were more productive.
I suffer from a chronic disease that, among other things, plays havoc with my sleep. Where I live, this entitles me to grow marijuana. I use a small amount every night to fall asleep and stay that way. As a result, I have become increasingly familiar with the “how to” of all this.
You can buy carbon dioxide tanks to aid a crop. My equipment supplier says adding CO2 is only relevant for large-scale indoor growers. It does not increase the potency — that’s mostly a matter of genetics — but rather is said to increase yield. I grow four or five plants at a time, and feel no need to increase their yield.
If someone suggests that more atmospheric CO2 will make pot more potent, to my knowledge they are wrong. It might, in theory, increase the yield of pot grown outdoors.
One has to wonder why cannabis breeders worldwide waste their time selecting genetics and phenotypes for potency increases when all that is necessary is a bottle of CO2 cracked open in the corner.
Check your biology books!! Nary a mention of CO2 being the “nutrient” lacking!!