Tracing Marijuana To Its Roots: Scientists Seek Marijuana’s Isotop…
The News Review:
- Tracing Marijuana To Its Roots: Scientists Seek Marijuana’s Isotop…
- SAN FRANCISCO Marijuana grower wants a new trial
- The Official KFVS12 and Heartland News Web Site | 6/24/07 - Hemp
- Man sued for marijuana possession
- Dutch seek to rein in vice
- Justice capsized?: The Coast Guard court system is supposed to be…
Tracing Marijuana To Its Roots: Scientists Seek Marijuana’s Isotop…
Science Daily - Science Daily (press release) - Jun 24, 2007
A few more years and enough samples and they hope to have something even more precise: an elemental fingerprint that could tell police where and under what conditions a sample of marijuana was grown. "There are scientists already doing this for drugs like heroin and cocaine," said Matthew Wooller, Alaska Stable Isotope Facility director. "The potential is there for being able to do this for marijuana as well. "
The key lies at the atomic level. Of particular interest to Wooller and his colleagues are the stable isotopes of four elements: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen. Isotopes are atoms of elements that have the same number of protons and electrons but different numbers of neutrons. A stable isotope is one that doesn’t decay over time… Those additional or missing neutrons in an isotope slightly alter the mass of the atom, allowing scientists to use a stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer to separate the light isotopes from the heavy ones and form a ratio for each sample. That ratio can tell scientists about the sample and its origins. "The marijuana holds a signature of the environment that it used to be grown in," Wooller said. "It is laid down in time and preserved in the materials that make up a plant. "
For example, oxygen and hydrogen ratios can reveal information about the water a plant used while growing and, as a result, where it was grown. Water in Alaska and other high latitudes generally has a larger proportion of light oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes than water from locations at lower latitudes. Carbon tells another story, he said.
SAN FRANCISCO Marijuana grower wants a new trial
San Francisco Chronicle - Jun 24, 2007
The 62-year-old Oakland man claims U. District Judge Charles Breyerin San Francisco wrongly barred him from telling jurors his goal washelping the sick. In a motion filed earlier this month, Rosenthal’s attorney arguedBreyer should have allowed him to present evidence regarding “thescientific value of medical marijuana.
The Official KFVS12 and Heartland News Web Site | 6/24/07 - Hemp
KFVS - Jun 24, 2007
The problem is growing hemp (see photo). The DEA said in a quote last week in USA Today, “There's no distinguishing feature between marijuana and hemp. ” Here's how dumb the law is. Hemp can be imported from Canada, Europe, and China, but American farmers can't grow it. Look, for those of you that think I'm a little bit off center, hemp plants have a very low concentration of the psycho active chemical that gives someone a high if they smoke it.
Man sued for marijuana possession
sunstar.com.ph - Jun 24, 2007
Star Davao - Man sued for marijuana possession. Charged with violation of Republic Act 9165 otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 was Jeffrey Estabillo Llagas, 30, resident of Roxas Extension, Barangay 31-D, Davao city.
Dutch seek to rein in vice
Seattle Times - Jun 24, 2007
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — For years, W. Kranendonk was a lone ranger in Dutch politics — the editor of an orthodox Christian newspaper in a nation that has legalized prostitution, euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage and allows the personal use of marijuana. Today, with an orthodox Christian political party in the government for the first time, and with immigration anxieties fueling a national search for identity, the country that has been the world’s most socially liberal political laboratory is rethinking its anything-goes policies. And suddenly, Kranendonk no longer seems so all alone. “People in high political circles are saying it can’t be good to have a society so liberal that everything is allowed,” said Kranendonk, editor of Reformist Daily and an increasingly influential voice that resonates in the shifting mainstream of Dutch public opinion. In cities across the Netherlands, mayors and town councils are closing down shops where marijuana is sold, rolled and smoked… Those same concerns have prompted some cities to bar tourists from their marijuana and hashish shops. Some localities now require patrons of the shops to show Dutch identity cards to gain entry, and a new nationwide law forbids the sale of alcohol in shops that sell pot and hash. Some lawmakers have proposed requiring the shops to warn their customers about the dangers of cannabis, mimicking the warning labels on tobacco and alcohol products. Ivo Opstelten, the mayor of Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, announced this month that he will close all marijuana shops within 250 yards of a school — nearly half of the city’s 62 shops. Michael Veling, 52, proprietor of an Amsterdam coffee shop where a joint sells for $5. 50, said politicians are looking for any excuse to scale back the sale of soft drugs. James Kennedy, professor of contemporary history at the Free University of Amsterdam, describes the attitude as a national “weariness with moral squalor — the Dutch have grown tired of it and unwilling to put up with it.
Justice capsized?: The Coast Guard court system is supposed to be…
Free with registration - Baltimore Sun - AccessMyLibrary.com - Jun 24, 2007
The charges are investigated and prosecuted by uniformed Coast Guard officers. The harshest penalty a Coast Guard judge can hand down is revocation of those credentials, but even a brief suspension can cause turmoil in the life of someone who has built a career working on the water. Mississippi barge pilot Greg Periman lost his license for almost three years when he failed a drug test — a charge later thrown out when Periman.