Oranges that get you high - tomacco X 100

[lulz]

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.

Biochem 101: How to design a Cannabis-equivalent citrus plant Step One:

Biochemically isolate all the required enzymes for the production of THC.

Step Two:

Perform N-terminal sequencing on isolated enzymes, design degenerate PCR (polymerase chain reaction) primers and amplify the genes.

Step Three:

Clone genes into an agrobacterial vector by introducing the desired piece of DNA into a plasmid containing a transfer or T-DNA. The mixture is transformed into Agrobacterium tumefaciens, a gram negative bacterium.

Step Four:

Use the Agrobacterium tumefaciens to infect citrus plants after wounding. The transfer DNA will proceed to host cells by a mechanism similar to conjugation. The DNA is randomly integrated into the host genome and will be inherited.

It was in the fall of 1984 that John Chapman Professor of Biochemistry at Florida State University, now driving to work behind the wheel of a used Pontiac Bonneville, first set on a pet project that he hoped would "dissolve irrational legislation with a solid dose of reason." Nanofsky knew he would never get his family's car back, but he had plans to make sure that no one else would be pulled through the gears of what he considers a Kafka-esque drug enforcement bureaucracy.

"It's quite simple, really," Nanofsky explains, "I wanted to combine Citrus sinesis with Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol." In layman's terms, the respected college professor proposed to grow oranges that would contain THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Fourteen years later, that project is complete, and Nanofsky has succeeded where his letter writing campaign of yore failed: he has the undivided attention of the nation's top drug enforcement agencies, political figures, and media outlets.

The turning point in the Nanofsky saga came when the straight-laced professor posted a message to Internet newsgroups announcing that he was offering "cannabis-equivalent orange tree seeds" at no cost via the U.S. mail. Several weeks later, U.S. Justice Department officials showed up at the mailing address used in the Internet announcement: 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."

The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.

Editorial questions may be sent to John Paczkowski.

http://cannabisodling.1av10.nu/orange_high.html

Reputation Comments on this post:

	good find
	interesting stuff, and lol the title

[Shampoo]

Its too bad something with so much promise and eager excitement published 10 years ago has made little to no impact today. Not only are we not getting high off of oranges, but legislation has not re-addressed chemical outlaws an absurd impingement on natural endoproduction.

[SuprSonik]

Did anything ever come of this? It happened nearly 10 years ago. It's pretty fascinating...SWIM has never heard of it before.

[fnord]

Can anyone give the species name? patents etc?

[AntiAimer]

Smurf wants a Mirange!!!!

No wonder there's the myth of smoking orange peels to get high.

[sterling77]

There was never a Nanofsky at florida state. This article is a hoax-type of deal. If only..

[Shampoo]

John Chapman Professor of Biochemistry at Florida State University

John Chapman is the real name for Johnny Appleseed. A hoax indeed.

[julian]

Originally Posted by Shampoo

John Chapman is the real name for Johnny Appleseed. A hoax indeed.

i dunno it's on hightimes.com i would think they would check their sources.

[Digemlo]

Originally Posted by julian

i dunno it's on hightimes.com i would think they would check their sources.

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not...



This article sounded promising, but can anyone out there confirm the given "steps" to transfer THC-producing enzymes?

[julian]

Originally Posted by Digemlo

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not...



This article sounded promising, but can anyone out there confirm the given "steps" to transfer THC-producing enzymes?

no sarcasm intended. swim found the article on hightimes.com (on the left side of the homepage where they have recent news stories regarding marijuana). as soon as he saw the article he rushed here to post about it, although somebody had already posted. the article was removed from the site though.

[redway420]

High Times printed the THC Oranges story as news on Jan 30th and it spread rapidly from there. But here's an even earlier posting from Jan 28th of this year:

http://daoc.catacombs.com/forum.cfm?...um=DAOCOTForum

V/H

[Bajeda]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m..._59586992/pg_4

Look at pages 4 and 5. Found this while looking for a curriculum vitae for Nanofsky, who doesn't seem to exist outside this story.

[Alfa]

I liked the hoax article about ecstasy tomatoes better.

[psyche]

^^ There is such a thing? This article remainded me right away about the simpsons episode, where the simpsons accidentally grow addicting tomatoes that have, uhm, tobacco if I remember correctly inside them. Everybody is getting crazy about them and homer is offered a senseless deal of money, but guess what, he's not gonna get the money.

[Paracelsus]

The idea of nicotine tomatoes would actually be much more viable than THC oranges, since the tomato plant and tobacco are related (both are nighshades).

[Shampoo]

Originally Posted by Paracelsus

The idea of nicotine tomatoes would actually be much more viable than THC oranges, since the tomato plant and tobacco are related (both are nighshades).

Good point. Perhaps hackberry plants or even hops would be more realistic. Any other notable Cannabaceae?

[Paracelsus]

Humulus lupulus AKA hops. There is some literature on the topic of grafting hop vines to cannabis roots to produce THC-bearing hops.

[redway420]

The THC Oranges story is a well crafted hoax recently rediscovered and posted on High Times as news. From there it went to dozens of forums.

I can be done, I'd imagine, as Japanese scientists have created a strain of yeast which produces THC.

V/H

[Bajeda]

I was looking for a clip of the Simpsons episode where they grow tomacco (the animal attack sequence is great), but found some nifty articles instead. Real tomacco anyone?


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...8/?hub=SciTech

An Oregon scientist with a lot of extra time on his hands has set out to bring a Simpsons episode to life -- and succeeded.


He's created "tomacco," a bizarre cross between tobacco and tomatoes, after watching an episode in which Homer Simpson creates the addictive crop.
In the episode, Homer grows the hybrid by accident when he mixes the plants' seeds together. The plant bears strange fruit that has a brown, gooey centre and that Homer's son Bart declares taste "like cigarette butts."
Yet Bart can't resist eating more and soon decides the fruit are "smooth and mild -- and refreshingly addictive!" The entire town becomes hooked after one bite, and Homer gets rich.


Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, wondered whether such a thing could exist. He tried grafting a tobacco plant onto a tomato root. But it didn't take, and the plant died.
He then tried reversing it, grafting a tomato plant onto tobacco roots. After a few trials and errors, he ended up with a "tomacco" plant. Thankfully, it didn't require the boost of plutonium "fertilizer" that Homer's crops needed.
Baur's plant is small and has produced only one piece of fruit. But a laboratory has confirmed the plant's leaves indeed contain nicotine. Though the fruit hasn't been tested, Baur believes it could be poisonous since it likely contains a lethal amount of nicotine.


The tomato and tobacco plant can successfully become one because they come from the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the deadly nightshade.
Bauer, an operations analyst in an Oregon waste-water facility, remembered a 1959 study he had read for a graduate chemistry class in university, in which researchers crossed a tomato plant with tobacco. Since his work involves chemistry, he had saved his textbooks and was able to find the 1959 study.


It turns out that George Meyers, a writer for The Simpsons at the time, got a degree in biochemistry from Harvard. However, he didn't write the tomacco episode. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, who majored in English at Brown University.
The local Oregon affiliate for Fox News, the sister network of Fox, which creates The Simpsons, has done a segment on Baur's accomplishment. Now he's an instant celebrity.


And yet, no tobacco companies have called demanding the rights, the fate that befell Homer. But Baur is relieved. At least the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives hasn't called.

Too bad he isn't from Springfield, Oregon. That would be too perfect!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msr5Nj95SKk <----- News clip on tomacco.



And on a mostly unrelated side note, the title's Simpson's reference notwithstanding, here is a page with clips of Simpson episodes related to drug use.

[cosmicruler]

Not this again...!!!

SWIM thought that the fig tree was closely related to cannabis and would like to try grafting onto a branch to see if it is viable or not....