Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Dr. Ernie Small
February 28, 2014 at 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
| Location: | 4440Q Carleton Technology and Training Centre |
| Cost: | Free |
| Audience: | Anyone |
| Key Contact: | Owen Rowland |
| Contact Email: | owen.rowland@carleton.ca |
Evolution of Cannabis (marijuana, hemp)
Dr. Ernie Small, Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Friday, February 28th – 3:30PM – CTTC 4440Q
Faculty Host: Owen Rowland
Medicinal Plants • Evolution • Cannabis • Fibre • Cannabinoids
Like many crops, Cannabis sativa arose from a weedy ancestor, its characteristics altered by humans to make it more productive in cultivation, but less viable in the wild. However, cultivated plants regularly escape back to the wild, abandon the domesticated features that shackled them to servitude in cultivation, and re-evolve adaptive features that facilitate survival in nature. Cultivated forms of the species have been used by people for thousands of years. To meet the different narcotic and non-narcotic usages of the plant, humans have moulded it into a range of diverse domesticated kinds, differing in anatomy, architecture, chemistry, geographical distribution, physiology, sex expression, and even colour and aroma. Fibre from the stem, although largely obsolete for cordage, canvas, and paper, is wonderful as a component of plastics and a wide array of building construction materials; and edible oil from the seed is exceptionally healthy, tasty, and marketable. The plant is also remarkably suitable for sustainable, environmentally-friendly agriculture. However, the species is primarily of interest to most people for its drug usages, due to unique chemicals known as cannabinoids, principally the intoxicating THC and the sedative CBD. Technologies for preparing and consuming narcotic cannabis have become quite sophisticated in recent times. In Western nations, so-called sativa strains are dominated by THC, while the infrequently encountered, so-called indica strains additionally have substantial CBD. Recent exciting discoveries about human cellular physiology suggest there is genuine medicinal potential, particularly of the indica strains.