Bruce, thanks for giving me a chance to comment on seeded versus non\-seeded cannabis\.
You said "you could grow a whole lot of seed crop by using brushes etc\. to
paint the pollen on to the female plants without seeding plants intended
to only produce flowers (e.g., sensimillia)." LOL, Bruce; for commercial production of seeds, you just use wind - cannabis is wind-pollinated. This stuff gets 17 feet high and higger! You'd need huge ladders, not just paint brushes!
(And people should definitely grow it outside whenever possible; more cost effective and better nutritional/medicinal content.)
And that is ONE reason why we need to outlaw GMO cannabis -- you can't corral pollen. Farmers need to start suing Monsanto for trespass when its pollen pollinates their crops. Instead, Monsanto has been suing farmers for theft of its patented genetics. It won one of those cases -- but legally, it doesn't have a leg to stand on -- but it has a LOT more money than individual farmers, so it can wear down the little guys.
And that is the SECOND reason we need to ban GMO cannabis -- if we don't, the monolithic few biotech companies will use patent law to ruin small farmers.
A THIRD reason is that one reason to create GMO cannabis -- besides patenting it and then using the patent laws and big law firms as swords to ruin people -- which only huge companies can do -- is that GMO crops are designed so Round-up -- another Monsanto special -- can be used to get rid of weeds. It's turning out that a main ingredient in Round-up, glysophate (spelling's wrong) something or other is showing up in a lot of the water and air -- and it's BAD for animals, including us.
A FOURTH reason is that a monoculture of any crop is asking for trouble if a super-pest or virus comes along - the loss of a small field here and there is one thing, but whole states' crops could be wiped out when there's just monoculture.
A FIFTH reason to ban GMO cannabis is that we do not know, over the long haul, the effect of GMO crops. testing things for a few years is not enough. There's already evidence that GMO soybeans and corn are causing stillbirths and spontaneous abortions in animals fed it -- and that's over the SHORT haul, since animals raised for meat don't live long lives anyway.
The drug that made me go crazy, Provigil, was something I'd taken for some four years before it built up enough in my system to cause nasty side effects. People never think there can be that kind of delay between an event or ongoing events and the final consequences, but there are plenty of other examples -- syphilis, for one. One sexual act and years late, the tertiary stage of the disease.
A SIX reason to ban GMO cannabis is that it is all part of the consolidation and monopolization of power in the hands of a few companies, who can grow monolithic crops using non-ecologically sound methods of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers instead of composting and recycling animal wastes and overpower small, family farms who are using older and more ecologically sound and sustainable practices. We need decentralization of power and more labor-intensive methods in order to provide peopel with meaningful work and a better environment.
And now a word about seeded versus non-seeded cannabis. I'd already ben told be several patients that seeded cannabis works better for them than sensimilla -- jsut as outdoor grown cannabis works better. On October 5, 2011, I heard D.J. Short talk about cannabis. He said that some of the best cannabis he'd smoked was seeded, and he explained why he thought that was. Addreessing some of the older guys in the audience, he asked if they remembered some famous crop of Acapulco Gold one year, that had arrived in three or so separate shipments. By teh time of the last shipment, he said, it was nothing but seeds, stems and dust -- and he said he'd have paid twice as much of those stem, seeds and dust as he'd paid for the first shipment of pretty buds.
I liked it when I found seeds in what I grew. They aren't that hard to remove, and they actually are fun to eat -- and they are good for you. And then you have the basis for starting lots of little seedlings. Which are more fun and interesting to grow than clones