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> European regulators, he said, are eager for a way to create a steady supply of THC and other cannabinoids without actually cultivating marijuana. “They are in fear that these plants will be grown and will support some illegal farming,” So the regulators are eager to flood the market with GMO THC, so they can stop people from growing their own organic THC? Sounds like they just want to commercialize & control it.
If they really wanted to commercialize and control the sale of marijuana, they would legalize it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scalable? Yes. Patentable? No. Although, the yeast could be a trade secret.
Monsanto holds patents on plant seeds. Why would yeast differ?
For example, I know vets with PTSD who say mj is the only thing that helps them, but some of them are in states where the VA will stop providing care or withhold medication/treatment/payments if they test positive... but the VA has a deal with some pharmaceutical companies and it's legal to give two variations of synthetic THC, and every single one of the guys I know who have tried it have said it was nothing like mj, provided almost none of the benefits, and was often a very negative experience.
Don't misunderstand, I worked in biotech for a while and encourage the learning process of using methods like this to potentially produce and study certain drugs, but this is a drug that doesn't have a supply problem, because it's everywhere, it's easy to grow, it only has a legal problem. Synthetics seem like a way to capitalize legally on a black market that shouldn't exist.
Eh. Science can't even make a good sugar substitute...
I don't see how this is superior to having the plant itself create THC which is much simpler and cheaper. Other than being a cool trick, how is this going to change the world, as the article claims? It really doesn't specify how the THC produced from yeast is any better or different than that produced from the plant. Can yeast production be scaled up in ways that plat production can't? Or is it just that it might be…
One possible clue is in this quote: "[Cannabidiol] production from plants is a bit complicated." This might turn out to be by far the best way to obtain pure cannabidiol (and other cannabinoids).
I suspect that the long-term goal is to demonstrate new chemical synthesis techniques of interest to the pharmaceutical industry. The choice of THC (& hydrocodone) as an endpoint might have been somewhat arbitrary.
> European regulators, he said, are eager for a way to create a steady supply of THC and other cannabinoids without actually cultivating marijuana. “They are in fear that these plants will be grown and will support some illegal farming,” So the regulators are eager to flood the market with GMO THC, so they can stop people from growing their own organic THC? Sounds like they just want to commercialize & control it.
Well that's a new one, because THC isn't an "organism", nor is it "genetically modified".
I have a strong dislike for these artificial THC drug pushes, because they ignore the real issue: the fact that marijuana helps people with a variety of medical ailments is largely because of the over 400+ cannabinoids, of which THC-cb1 and THC-cb2 are only two, while we are ignoring the other ones individually and as a compound/complementary effect. For example, I know vets with PTSD who say mj is the only thing tha…