The Other Cannabis
Even in Colorado, breeding hemp means grappling with all sorts of legal red tape. One plant biologist hopes to beat the odds.
Bear Reel cuts a tiny gure on the vast Colorado plains, but she lives up to her name in ferocity of spirit. She has to. The 34-year-old occupies a decidedly unorthodox niche: a 21st-century scientist breeding new varieties of an ancient plant that’s also a controlled substance.
Reel would love to travel the country, collecting seed from these wild plants, but won’t. “I refuse to flout the law,” she says. “I’d rather change it.”
Reel specializes in Cannabis sativa, commonly known as marijuana—at least when it contains significant amounts of psychoactive tetrahydro-cannabinol (THC). Because her end goal is medicinal hemp, however, she takes great pains to tamp down the plant’s THC levels while boosting the anticonvulsive compound cannabidiol (CBD).
In Colorado, where she works, pot...
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