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Genetically modified marijuana appeared on the market
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Times are changing, and cannabis suppliers are keeping pace with scientific and technological progress: genetically modified grass has appeared on the market.
The Le Monde newspaper reports that the traditional product continues to dominate the French market (mainly imports from Morocco - about 200 tons per year), but the wind of change is already felt. "Ten years of cannabis has clearly changed," says François Thierry, head of the Central Committee for the Suppression of Drug Trafficking in France.
A completely natural product with a low content of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is history. In the 1970s, people were smoking quite differently from what they are now. "In a few years, we switched from 3% or 4% of THC to 10%, and sometimes even cannabis occurs with 30% of this substance," the expert said.
New varieties of cannabis are increasingly competing with Moroccan hashish. They are more expensive, but more popular because of high quality - for the sake of such buzz you can and fork out.
The situation has changed so much that the Dutch authorities are considering the possibility of returning cannabis to the list of strong drugs. In special institutions in Amsterdam, where you can buy and consume cannabis completely legally, locally produced goods prevail. It is the hemp plantations of the Netherlands (and there are more than five thousand of them in the country) that are the main source of the new generation of marijuana, second only to Great Britain. In both countries, the cultivation of cannabis moves under the glass and into the cellars. This is no longer a craft, but a large-scale production process, business. A similar picture is emerging in Germany, Belgium and in the south-east of Europe, in particular in Albania.
In February, the French police discovered 700 plants in the warehouse in La Courneuve, north-east of Paris. "More than 200 plants - this is not an addition to the pension, but organized crime," explains Mr. Thierry. But, although France remains the largest consumer of cannabis in Europe, its production lags behind.
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