The Botany of Desire Page #8

You see new possibilities

in it that weren't there before.

In the 1960s,

use of marijuana soared.

The drug had been illegal

for more than 20 years.

But that didn't stop an entire

generation from embracing it.

It was well suited

To the spirit

of that time.

You know, every drug

has its character,

And cannabis's character

Is not about being hyper

and working really hard.

It is a drug that makes you

not want to strive.

It's about kicking back,

listening to music.

So it just kind of fit

the spirit of the '60s.

Marijuana seems

to second the motion,

No matter what the motion is.

To many americans,

The fact that millions

of young people

Were smoking marijuana

Threatened the very fabric

of society.

Those fears prompted

the government

To take action.

Operation intercept

is designed to make it

More difficult

to bring marijuana

Into the country.

Most of the marijuana

was coming in from mexico,

And the plant soon found itself

under attack.

The weapon -- a toxic chemical

called paraquat.

We have to remember that

in the evolution of a species,

Everything counts as a factor

of natural selection,

Including things like,

oh, the decision

By the United States government

in the '70s

To pressure mexico to spray

Herbicide on their pot fields.

From 1975 to 1983,

mexican pilots

Doused the country's

cannabis fields with the poison.

There was some concern

that it would

Get into the product

coming north

If it was cut

right after it was sprayed,

And that, as people

inhaled this, it probably

Wasn't very good for you.

This is

a drug-testing lab

In palo alto, california.

The people here are receiving

300 samples of marijuana a day

from smokers

Who want to know

if their pot is contaminated.

People are extremely

Anxious about this problem,

And frankly,

I don't blame them.

Mexican marijuana

Began to develop

a very bad name.

This had

the unintended consequence

Of creating a domestic

marijuana industry

That hadn't really

existed before.

It was concentrated

In california, hawaii,

and other states

Whose climate was favorable

for the tropical plant.

Once this american

marijuana agriculture

Got started,

it was very, very successful,

And the government was

kind of shocked to find one year

That the total amount seized

Exceeded their estimate

of the total size of the crop.

And they realized, "ooh, I think

we're missing something.

There must be

a lot more marijuana out there."

And indeed, there was,

all over the west coast.

The government

dispatched helicopters

To find the fields and force

e ers out of business.

When local and federal

agents raided

This marijuana field

in northern california today,

They found

more than $50,000 worth

Of marijuana

ready to be harvested.

A task force is waging

an all-out war against pot.

So, with the rise

of the drug war, in a way,

You've got a threat

to this plant.

And it's very interesting

to see

How the plant coped.

Cannabis,

as plants so often do,

Found a way not only to survive

the threat,

But to come out ahead.

And what happened?

Well, the growers

and the plant

Adapted --

they moved indoors.

The problem

with moving indoors is,

This is a 12-foot-tall plant.

So what they needed were

The genes of a shorter

cannabis plant

To breed

with their tall plant.

So the pioneers

of indoor growing

Cross-bred the tall warm-weather

species, cannabis sativa,

With a low-growing mountain

species found mostly in asia,

Cannabis indica.

They brought together

these two great strains

In the marijuana family

And created a plant that was

short, fast, and strong.

The plant, which had once

Been a skinny little

piece of ditch weed,

Is now a pampered,

spectacularly good-looking,

Multi-colored,

rich, resinous being.

Hardly the species it was before

at all.

It's turned completely

into something else.

Nurtured by creative

indoor gardeners,

Cannabis is now

a far more potent plant

Than it was

a generation ago.

The key to that transformation

was stripping away

The rule of nature

and replacing it with our own.

It's an artificial

environment,

Completely artificial.

Everything

about our natural world

Is unnatural, everything.

It's really

like a super-plant.

In the natural world,

the plants here would be

Six to nine months

from seed to harvest.

That's just simply

inefficient.

You couldn't justify

an operation

With such a slow turnaround.

So, instead of six to nine

months, in my world,

These plants live their entire

life cycle in 90 days.

To get them

to do that,

The plants are subjected

To precisely controlled amounts

of nutrients, water,

And light.

They're under lights

that are blindingly bright,

Thousands of watts,

24 hours a day.

And these plants

are just, like,

Soaking up this light --

they love it.

I mean, they're just bathing

in light and growing so fast,

You can almost hear

the creak of their cells

As they stretch

and divide.

All that light generates

A tremendous amount of heat.

If I didn't have

air conditioning

And air circulation

and ventilation fans

Moving the heat

out of that room,

These plants would cook

in a matter of hours.

It's so complicated,

we're not smart enough to do it.

We have to have a full-time

electronic nanny

Watching the plants

all the time.

So these aren't normal plants.

These are super-hyper plants

That are right on the edge

at all times.

It's not just

a quicker harvest

The growers are after,

But a bigger bud

and a stronger high.

To achieve that,

They interfere

with the natural process.

Female marijuana plants produce

a sticky resin

That catches the pollen

that male plants produce.

That resin is

highly psychoactive.

To trick the females

into making more of it,

The growers keep male plants

exiled from the grow room.

So, in essence,

what you're seeing

Is extreme sexual frustration.

This is a room full of women

Who are looking for some guy

to come by

And give them some pollen

so they can create seeds.

And they try harder and harder

as time passes,

And the more unsuccessful

they are,

The more the production

of the resins

That is intended

to attract pollen

Increase, and that increases

The psychoactive elements

of the plant.

They are the best

gardeners of my generation,

I realized at a certain point.

You know, the best gardeners

of my generation

Are not hybridizing roses,

are not, you know,

Working with orchids.

They're working with this

incredibly valuable,

Incredibly interesting plant

called cannabis.

If this turns

into anything good,

Though, look at it,

I mean,

This is how thick

the stalk is

When it's just

gone to bloom.

It's got

a beautiful shape.

It is nice.

I mean, think about it.

This thing's a weed.

It's a weed.

It's a weed that's worth,

you know, in the open market,

Like, you know,

$6,000, $7,000 a pound.

Pretty good for a weed, huh?

But cannabis only

fetches that price

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote