wem511

A new thing thats being developed is a marijuana fingerprint that would be able to tell authorities when and where m.j was grown to help narrow down the search... so if your growing for sale, watch out!

"Source: University of Alaska Fairbanks

Date: June 22, 2007

Tracing Marijuana To Its Roots: Scientists Seek Marijuana's Isotopic
Fingerprint

Science Daily — Scientists at the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility can tell
whether marijuana confiscated in a traffic stop in Fairbanks likely came
from Mexico or the Matanuska Valley.

Investigator Stephen Goetz measures the diameter of the stem of a marijuana
plant. (Credit: Photo courtesy of UAF Police Department)

They're also working on a way to determine whether it was grown indoors or
out.

A few more years and enough samples and they hope to have something even
more precise: an elemental fingerprint that could tell police where and
under what conditions a sample of marijuana was grown.

"There are scientists already doing this for drugs like heroin and cocaine,"
said Matthew Wooller, Alaska Stable Isotope Facility director. "The
potential is there for being able to do this for marijuana as well."

The key lies at the atomic level. Of particular interest to Wooller and his
colleagues are the stable isotopes of four elements: carbon, oxygen,
nitrogen and hydrogen.

Isotopes are atoms of elements that have the same number of protons and
electrons but different numbers of neutrons. A stable isotope is one that
doesn't decay over time. Those additional or missing neutrons in an isotope
slightly alter the mass of the atom, allowing scientists to use a stable
isotope ratio mass spectrometer to separate the light isotopes from the
heavy ones and form a ratio for each sample. That ratio can tell scientists
about the sample and its origins.

"The marijuana holds a signature of the environment that it used to be grown
in," Wooller said. "It is laid down in time and preserved in the materials
that make up a plant."

For example, oxygen and hydrogen ratios can reveal information about the
water a plant used while growing and, as a result, where it was grown. Water
in Alaska and other high latitudes generally has a larger proportion of
light oxygen and hydrogen stable isotopes than water from locations at lower
latitudes. Carbon tells another story, he said. It can offer information on
whether a plant was grown outdoors or inside. Nitrogen could provide even
more information.

The testing at the UAF facility is novel because, for each sample,
scientists are taking the isotopic signatures of four elements, rather than
for just a single one, Wooller said. "We have the potential to create a
precise chemical fingerprint."

The marijuana research began approximately two years ago and was initially
supported by a grant from the University of Alaska President's Special
Projects Fund. The UAF Police Department provided the lab samples of
marijuana confiscated locally.

"We started off running samples of unknown origin," Wooller said, noting
that even those samples yielded some surprising results.

Scientists initially assumed that most of the samples would show that they
had been grown in Alaska rather than being imported from the low latitudes.

"In fact, what we saw is there are samples that are almost certainly grown
in high latitude," he said. "Then you had marijuana that was clearly grown
at lower latitudes."

Since then, the project has expanded beyond samples of unknown origin. The
federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Alaska Bureau of Alcohol and
Drug Enforcement have started providing samples from grows in Alaska.
Wooller hopes that, with enough of those samples, he can create a marijuana
isotope map for Alaska and beyond, which could eventually allow scientists
to match unknown samples with known growing locations.

The project has potential to help police on multiple levels, according to
Investigator Stephen Goetz at the UAF Police Department.

From an evidentiary standpoint, it could tie a growing operation to
marijuana seized on the street, he said, and offer evidence of both the
production of marijuana and its distribution.

"The common denominator that people use as their defense is that (they) are
growing it for their personal use only," Goetz said. If marijuana seized
from a dealer, for example, matched that growing operation, it could counter
such a defense, he said.

It could also help the state's drug enforcement officials track the
trafficking patterns of marijuana by comparing where the marijuana was grown
to where it is seized, Goetz said. "It could, theoretically, focus law
enforcement's efforts on where to look for (growing operations.)"

In order to get the method to that level, though, Wooller said he needs
time, money and many more samples of marijuana, either from known locations
or that are grown in a laboratory, such as the state crime lab, under
controlled conditions.

"We need more data," Wooller said. "We need more analyses of marijuana
samples from known locations so we can create these base marijuana isotope
maps."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University
of Alaska Fairbanks."

vape all day long.

gypsy420

Damn, that's retarded. I can't wait to move where it is legal!!!

hondamx004

damn

Cachaka

enter360

seriosly

SPACE3200

WTF

enter360

I wonder what they have done with that now and how would hydropotics would fit into their test. If you were to cross a hydro strain with a native grown strain would they still be able to "find it" ? I just want pot to be legal, keep the crack illegal but pot should be legal.

BLAZEDALWAYZ

DAMN THAT'S SUM BULLSHiT

Tiffer420

is there actually anywhere in this country where it IS legal? if so, I totally want to move there!

wem511

i think part of the finger print would be what sin the water so not sure if hydro would make a diff. Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are legal if you got one of the problems that dos will sign for it.

vape all day long.

ranchboi420

yea, hemp and marijuana should be legal, then they stop wasting our tax dollas on this type of shit B.S. and stop cutting down our trees for clothes and paper and stuff....just grow M.J. and every 8 weeks you have [5 times more paper/cloth/fiber per acre than you can harvest from 5 acres of trees, and you can only get that from trees every 80 years or so]

us govmt.=retarded dumb shits

StOn3D PrInC3Ss

Damn...will they ever get off our backs??? "Cant we all just get a bong???"

§TøрРP®Ïñ©£§§™...What business is it of your's what I do, read, buy, see or take into my body as long as I don't harm another human being while on this planet? And for those of you having a little moral dilemna on how to answer this, I'll answer for you. NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS Take that to the bank, cash it and take it on a vacation outta my fucking life. And stop bringing shotguns to UFO sightings, they might be here to pick me up and take me with 'em."
-Bill Hicks

xoxox