How Scientists Are Weeding Out Marijuana's Genetic Secrets
Even as more states move to legalize marijuana use, the plant’s genetic makeup remains a relative mystery.
“It’s still quite an undeveloped species from the perspective of genetics,” Canadian botanist Jonathan Page told Vocativ.
Page published the first paper with a draft sequence of a single cannabis strain, but federal laws against pot have long made academic research on the plant a challenge.
Things are changing, though, partially because of changing attitudes toward pot. Twenty-nine states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, and eight states plus D.C. have recreational laws on the books.
A Portland, Oregon-based genetics lab called Phylos is working on a marijuana genome project that would trace the full genetic map of the plant and its many different strains.
Phylos co-founder Mowgli Holmes, a former HIV researcher, sees blue skies for people who want some nice green bud.
“When we understand this...
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