Posted on 08/21/2007 1:14:22 AM PDT by neverdem
Every so often, a package of marijuana arrives in Jason B. West’s mail at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. While Dr. West may not be the only one on campus receiving deliveries of illegal drugs, he is probably the only one getting them compliments of the federal government.
Dr. West’s marijuana supply is decidedly not for consumption. It is meticulously cataloged and managed, repeatedly weighed to make sure none disappears, and returned to the sender (a laboratory at the University of Mississippi) or destroyed when he is done with it.
With financing from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. West, 34, is creating a model that can identify the geographic origin of cannabis plants based on certain chemical calling cards. The agency hopes to use the research to help decide where to concentrate its resources.
The research, the Marijuana Signature Project, relies on stable isotopes, which are forms of an element like nitrogen or oxygen, that have distinct atomic masses. Long employed in ecological research, stable isotopes are increasingly used for forensic purposes, including investigations into blood doping, arson and trafficking in contraband like drugs and endangered species.
“Stable isotopes are a signature on plant materials and things that are derived from plants,” said Dr. West, a research assistant professor in the university’s biology department. “Using them, you can get information about where something grew and its growth environment.”
Marijuana is the most pervasive illegal drug in the United States, with 10,000 metric tons consumed yearly by Americans in their college dormitories, suburban subdivisions, housing projects and Hollywood mansions.
Although suppliers in Mexico and Canada, especially British Columbia, are gaining market share, most of...
--snip--
Dr. West believes that his forensic investigations will have wider applications, which may include answering questions about global climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It’s a waste of money. Put your finger in a hole in the dike while it crumbles away under your feet.
The marijuana market is so vast it is absolutely hopeless to try and track where it comes from as a method to try and stop the importation or movement.
If you slow production in one area it will simply pick up elsewhere.
Halfway through the article, I started humming “Panama Red”.
But we’re so close to winning! If we only spend a couple billion more kicking in doors and jail a couple hundred thousand more dealers and users the entire drug trade will crumble!
/s
Using the same technology they use for bomb detection (isotopes) sites can be set up along major routes to detect vehicles carring drugs of all sorts. The purpose of using the broad array of pot is to tune the detectors.
Whew!
For a while there I thought someone had blown the cover on the "tracking devices program" we at the CIA had chemically installed in marijuana seeds back in the '60's.
Oops! Shouldn't have said that.
Peter Rowan’s bluegrass version or NRPS’ country rock version?
But they can swim like the dickens. lol
can be set up along major routes to detect vehicles carring drugs of all sorts.
__________
excellent. we can tune the thing to find and stop the drugs coming across the border, all the while the illegal flow of people continues unabated.
ah, priorities.
What is the exact street address again? I am just curious? That is it, just curious....
At last! An end to weed fraud! No one will be able to substitute crappy Mexican weed for primo Coloumbian and get away with it! Now, if we could use it to distinguish between Cuban and Dominican cigars everything will be cool.
This technology will not work that way. They are studying stable isotopes. The bomb detectors you are thinking about detect radiation emitted from radioactive (unstable) isotopes.
all this work for a plant but they can’t deport an illegal alien in their custody before they start murdering people
Only government and academia could be this ridiculous.
Women really do prefer pink, researchers say
Wal-Mart: Melamine Found in Dog Treats (Dog Treat Update)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Unfortunately, the researchers in charge haven’t been able to give a coherent presentation of their findings, and ate all the little finger sandwiches.
Thanks neverdem.
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