Claudia Dreifus


A conversation with Mahmoud A. Elsohly


Q. WHAT EXACTLY DOES THE MARIJUANA PROJECT DO?

A. Though cannabis had been used by man for thousands of years, it wasn?t
until 1964 that the actual chemical structure of the active ingredient,
tetrahydrocannabinol ? THC ? was determined. That stimulated new research on
the plant.

At this laboratory, which began in 1968, we often investigate marijuana?s
chemistry. We also have a farm where we grow cannabis for federally approved
researchers. Our material is employed in clinical studies around the
country, to see if the active ingredient in this plant is useful for pain,
nausea, glaucoma, for AIDS patients and so on. For these tests, researchers
need standardized material for cigarettes or THC pills. We grow the cannabis
as contractors for the National Institute on Drug Abuse ? NIDA. And the only
researchers who can get our material are those with special permits from the
Drug Enforcement Administration and NIDA. We have visitors at the building
now and then who ask, ?Oh, do you give samples?? We say, ?No!?

Q. WHY BOTHER CULTIVATING YOUR OWN MARIJUANA WHEN LAW ENFORCEMENT
ORGANIZATIONS SEIZE BRICKS OF IT EVERY DAY?

A. The most obvious reason is that with confiscated marijuana, you don?t
really know what you have. When researchers are performing clinical tests,
they must have standardized material that will be the same every time. And
it must be safe. You certainly wouldn?t want to give a sick person something
sprayed with pesticide or angel dust, substances we?ve detected in some
illicit marijuana.

When this project first started in the late 1960s, people thought, ?Oh, we?ll
get materials for testing after a big bust happens.? So the first batch was
acquired that way. They made an extract out of the seized material, and it
turned out to be contaminated with tung oil. That brought home the point: if
you?re going to do clinical trials on humans, you?d better know what you?re
using and where it came from. Hence, our farm.

Another thing: pharmaceutical researchers are often looking at something
they call ?the dose response.? They want to know what happens to a patient
smoking a marijuana cigarette with 1 percent THC versus 2 percent or 8
percent. Without standardized material, you can?t accurately test which
produced the best or worst result.

Q. ONE OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF AGRONOMY IS TO START WITH GOOD SEEDS.
WHERE DO YOUR SEEDS COME FROM?

A. That?s a very good question. Most of the illicit material in the 1960s
came from Mexico. So, in collaboration with the D.E.A. and the Mexican
government, we acquired those seeds. Later, we acquired others from
Colombia, Thailand, Jamaica, India, Pakistan and places in the Middle East.
That permitted us to study chemical and botanical differences. By 1976, we
were growing about 96 different varieties.

Interestingly, that led us to see that there was only one species of
cannabis. It had always been thought that there were many. But you could see
that the chemistry of this plant is the same qualitatively no matter where
it comes from. What makes each different is the relative proportion of the
different chemicals in there, which doesn?t make a different species. It?s
really the same species, but different varieties of it. The different types
of varieties hybridize very easily.

Q. DOES THIS MEAN THAT ONE COULD MAKE GENETICALLY MODIFIED CANNABIS?

A. Yes. Absolutely. That actually has been the trend over the years in the
cultivation in the illicit market, and also in the legal market, where we
are doing genetic selection, where we select specific materials that have
the genes that produce higher levels of THC or some of the other
ingredients.

Q. SO OUT THERE IN RURAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, HAVE THEY BEEN IMPROVING THEIR
CROPS WITH MODERN GENETICS?

A. They have been doing genetic selection for years. You can see the potency
keeps going up. In the 1970s, the seized marijuana had probably 1 percent or
less of the active ingredient. Now, it?s about 8 percent, on the average.

Q. HOW DID YOU COME TO YOUR UNUSUAL SPECIALTY?

A. The honest truth is that it began out of necessity. In 1975, while I was
in my last year of graduate school in natural products chemistry at the
University of Pittsburgh, the Lord provided me with twin daughters. My
graduate student stipend was already over, and my adviser said, ?You need to
quickly find a job.?

So he recommended me for a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of
Mississippi?s Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. My first job
here had to do with poison ivy. Then a better-paying position opened up at
the Marijuana Project, and I moved to that. I liked the research, and I got
on well with my supervisor and mentor, Dr. Carlton Turner, who later became
the director of drug abuse policy in the Reagan White House. So, this work,
it just happened.

Q. DO YOUR NEIGHBORS EVER KID YOU ABOUT YOUR JOB?

A. My daughters, when they were in grade school, the teachers would ask
them, ?What does your father do?? And they?d say, ?He grows marijuana.? And
the teachers? eyes would grow wide. After a while, my daughters said: ?He
works at the University of Mississippi. He?s a professor.?

Mahmoud A. ElSohly, 62, a research professor at the School of Pharmacy at
the University of Mississippi, presides over a farm that grows nearly a
hundred varieties of marijuana plants. As director of the Marijuana Project,
he oversees the only federally approved marijuana plantation in the country.
We spoke for two hours in September at his laboratory in Oxford, Miss., and
later again by telephone. An edited version of the conversations follows.
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