VANCOUVER — When the product’s called Atomic Haze, you might expect a description of its contents to be rather fuzzy — and a team of Canadian scientists has found just that.

“The genetics of cannabis are muddled at this point and we need to spend some time doing research to figure that out,” says Jonathan Page, a University of B.C. botanist who co-wrote a study published Wednesday in the online journal PLOS One. “There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of chaos in the system now.”

The study found only a moderate chance that the strains of marijuana reported as being in 81 samples were supported by analysis of the plants’ genetic code.

“Cannabis breeders and growers often indicate the percentage of sativa or indica in a cannabis strain, but they are not very accurate,” Page explained.

It’s an issue with implications for Canada’s legal medical marijuana and hemp growers, and also illegal shops in Vancouver which offer menus listing marijuana hybrids — and their purported effects — with little scientific evidence to back them.

That knowledge is lacking because it’s a controlled substance not heavily studied by scientists. So suppliers have come up with their own system, he says.

Marijuana menus online or in stores offer poetic descriptions of products’ effects based on the type of plant. Indica-type plants are said to relax or relieve pain — the “body stone” from days of yore; sativa’s effects are more often described as cerebral and euphoric.

“And yet we don’t really have a good idea about what the genetic bases for those differences are and how those differences relate to the properties of marijuana,” says Page. “We’re still trying to figure out the scientific truth behind that.”

Dana Larsen, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries and a director with Vancouver’s two Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary stores, agrees that the classification system has its shortcomings. But that’s because it’s an illegal business that would improve its standards if it became legal, he says.

“Under prohibition, it’s very very difficult for us to keep track. Strain names are as much an art form rather than a science under current prohibitionist conditions,” says Larsen.

Sean Myles, assistant professor in the department of plant and animal sciences at Dalhousie University in Halifax, co-wrote the study, which also examined 43 hemp samples. Each sample went though a $50 DNA sequencing scan funded by Myles’ research grants and contributions from Page’s start-up biotech company called Anandia Labs based at UBC. The company hopes to develop a process to quickly and efficiently analyze marijuana strains.

Such a test could also be useful to Canada’s thriving hemp industry, says Page. Hemp can legally be grown for fibre and seeds if it has less that 0.3 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the intoxicating ingredient found in marijuana.

The study follows Page’s previous work with the National Research Council of Canada which published the first cannabis genome sequence in 2011. He notes that all the research is available from open-access journals that don’t charge for the information.

“We’re putting it out to the broader scientific community to figure out some of these problems. It’s very much a public effort to build a science foundation for Canada as well.”

Philippe Lucas is the vice-president for patient research and services at the federally-sanctioned medical marijuana supplier Tilray in Nanaimo. He says Tilray provides information about ingredients that create the strongest effects in patients, but says the area is ripe for more study.

“The novel findings cited in this article show that despite thousands of years of use for fibre, food, and medicine, our scientific understanding of the hemp and cannabis plant are truly in their infancy,” Lucas said in an e-mail.

Tilray provides information about levels of THC responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive effects and cannabidiol ― abbreviated as CBD ― which produces a physical effect without a high. They are two of the 85 compounds in marijuana called cannabinoids that react with the human body.

The company has also started providing information on terpenes ― an often strong-smelling compound common to evergreens ― which modify the effects of THC and other cannabinoids, he said.

eellis@vancouversun.com

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