Off Topic But Truly Beautiful (fwd )

[Michael Motyka <mmotyka@lsil.com>]

Clyde wrote:
> 
> Long but fascinating...
> 
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     9 November 1998
> 
>     DATELINE--Tallahassee, Fla.
>     Oranges that get you high
>     ===========================
> 
>     A Florida Biochemist designs a citrus tree with THC.
> 
>     In the summer of 1984, 10th-grader Irwin Nanofsky and a
>     friend were driving down the Apalachee Parkway on the way
>     home from baseball practice when they were pulled over by
>     a police officer for a minor traffic infraction.
> 
>     After Nanofsky produced his driver's license the police
>     officer asked permission to search the vehicle. In less
>     than two minutes, the officer found a homemade pipe
>     underneath the passenger's seat of the Ford Aerostar
>     belonging to the teenage driver's parents. The minivan
>     was seized, and the two youths were taken into custody on
>     suspicion of drug possession.
> 
>     Illegal possession of drug paraphernalia ranks second
>     only to open container violations on the crime blotter of
>     this Florida college town. And yet the routine arrest of
>     16 year-old Nanofsky and the seizure of his family's
>     minivan would inspire one of the most controversial
>     drug-related scientific discoveries of the century.
> 
>     Meet Hugo Nanofsky, biochemist, Florida State University
>     tenured professor, and the parental authority who posted
>     bail for Irwin Nanofsky the night of July 8, 1984. The
>     elder Nanofsky wasn't pleased that his son had been
>     arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, and he
>     became livid when Tallahassee police informed him that
>     the Aerostar minivan would be permanently remanded to
>     police custody.
> 
>     Over the course of the next three weeks, Nanofsky penned
>     dozens of irate letters to the local police chief, the
>     Tallahassee City Council, the State District Attorney
>     and, finally, even to area newspapers. But it was all to
>     no avail.
> 
>     Under advisement of the family lawyer, Irwin Nanofsky
>     pled guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia in order
>     to receive a suspended sentence and have his juvenile
>     court record sealed. But in doing so, the family minivan
>     became "an accessory to the crime." According to Florida
>     State law, it also became the property of the Tallahassee
>     Police Department Drug Task Force. In time, the adult
>     Nanofsky would learn that there was nothing he could do
>     legally to wrest the vehicle from the hands of the state.
> 
>     It was in the fall of 1984 that         Biochem 101: How to
>     John Chapman Professor of               design a
>     Biochemistry at Florida State           Cannabis-equivalent
>     University, now driving to work         citrus plant
>     behind the wheel of a used Pontiac
>     Bonneville, first set on a pet          Step One:
>     project that he hoped would             Biochemically
>     "dissolve irrational legislation        isolate all the
>     with a solid dose of reason."           required enzymes for
>     Nanofsky knew he would never get        the production of
>     his family's car back, but he had       THC.
>     plans to make sure that no one
>     else would be pulled through the        Step Two:
>     gears of what he considers a            Perform N-terminal
>     Kafka-esque drug enforcement            sequencing on
>     bureaucracy.                            isolated enzymes,
>                                             design degenerate
>     "It's quite simple, really,"            PCR (polymerase
>     Nanofsky explains, "I wanted to         chain reaction)
>     combine Citrus sinesis with Delta       primers and amplify
>     9-tetrahydrocannabinol." In             the genes.
>     layman's terms, the respected
>     college professor proposed to grow      Step Three:
>     oranges that would contain THC,         Clone genes into an
>     the active ingredient in                agrobacterial vector
>     marijuana. Fourteen years later,        by introducing the
>     that project is complete, and           desired piece of DNA
>     Nanofsky has succeeded where his        into a plasmid containing
>     letter writing campaign of yore         a transfer or T-DNA.
>     failed: he has the undivided            The mixture is transformed
>     attention of the nation's top drug      into Agrobacterium
>     enforcement agencies, political         tumefaciens, a gram
>     figures, and media outlets.             negative bacterium.
> 
>     The turning point in the Nanofsky       Step Four:
>     saga came when the straight-laced       Use the Agrobacterium
>     professor posted a message to           tumefaciens to infect citrus
>     Internet newsgroups announcing          plants after wounding. The
>     that he was offering                    transfer DNA will proceed
>     "cannabis-equivalent orange tree        to host cells by a mechanism
>     seeds" at no cost via the U.S.          similar to conjugation.
>     mail. Several weeks later, U.S.         The DNA is randomly
>     Justice Department officials            integrated into the
>     showed up at the mailing address        host genome and will
>     used in the Internet announcement:      be inherited.
>     a tiny office on the second floor
>     of the Dittmer Laboratory of
>     Chemistry building on the FSU campus. There they would wait
>     for another 40 minutes before Prof. Nanofsky finished
>     delivering a lecture to graduate students on his recent
>     research into the "cis-trans photoisomerization of olefins."
> 
>     "I knew it was only a matter of time before someone sent
>     me more than just a self-addressed stamped envelope,"
>     Nanofsky quips, "but I was surprised to see Janet Reno's
>     special assistant at my door." After a series of closed
>     door discussions, Nanofsky agreed to cease distribution
>     of the THC-orange seeds until the legal status of the
>     possibly narcotic plant species is established.
> 
>     Much to the chagrin of authorities, the effort to
>     regulate Nanofsky's invention may be too little too late.
>     Several hundred packets containing 40 to 50 seeds each
>     have already been sent to those who've requested them,
>     and Nanofsky is not obliged to produce his mailing
>     records. Under current law, no crime has been committed
>     and it is unlikely that charges will be brought against
>     the fruit's inventor.
> 
>     Now it is federal authorities who must confront the
>     nation's unwieldy body of inconsistent drug laws.
>     According to a source at the Drug Enforcement Agency, it
>     may be months if not years before all the issues involved
>     are sorted out, leaving a gaping hole in U.S. drug policy
>     in the meantime. At the heart of the confusion is the
>     fact that THC now naturally occurs in a new species of
>     citrus fruit.
> 
>     As policy analysts and hemp advocates alike have been
>     quick to point out, the apparent legality (for now) of
>     Nanofsky's "pot orange" may render debates over the
>     legalization of marijuana moot. In fact, Florida's top
>     law enforcement officials admit that even if the
>     cultivation of Nanofsky's orange were to be outlawed, it
>     would be exceedingly difficult to identify the presence
>     of outlawed fruit among the state's largest agricultural
>     crop.
> 
>     Amidst all of the hubbub surrounding his father's
>     experiment, Irwin Nanofsky exudes calm indifference. Now
>     30-years-old and a successful environmental photographer,
>     the younger Nanofsky can't understand what all of the
>     fuss is about. "My dad's a chemist. He makes polymers. I
>     doubt it ever crossed his mind that as a result of his
>     work tomorrow's kids will be able to get high off of half
>     an orange."
> 
>     Copyright 1994-98 San Francisco Bay Guardian.