Opinion: Mississippi legislators should allow constituents to spark up their massive stash of freeze-dried G-13 joints

As recently reported by the Associated Press:

Mississippi is moving closer to joining most other states in allowing people to use marijuana to relieve medical conditions. The Mississippi State House voted overwhelmingly on Jan. 19, 2022, to pass a bill that would create a medical marijuana program. 

(No longer Associated Press)

Some dork named “Tate Reeves” (real name, not making that up) voiced opposition to the Mississippi legislation, saying he doesn’t want a medical program to turn into a recreational one.

Upon initial review of the medical marijuana idea legislators were singing Bob Dylan in the Senate chambers, and it passed the State House by a massive 104-14 margin, so you can imagine the kind of buzz-kill debate Tate brought to the room with his suggestion. 

The bill is already chincy enough by only allowing people with marijuana prescriptions a mere 3.5 grams of herb per day – that’s like two, maybe three Raw comes depending on how big you stuff them. 

You may say measuring consumption by number of joints is an antiquated practice (i.e.: the concert is four joints away by back roads, three if we take the interstate,), but in Mississippi it makes perfect sense as the state is actually sitting on a massive supply of antiquated joints which have been freeze dried by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the University of Mississippi. 

It’s an odd situation for Mississippi, a state which doesn’t have a medical marijuana program, since much of the medical research into marijuana in the United States is performed using Mississippi-grown marijuana. University of Mississippi lab workers are tasked with freeze drying joints and giving them to researchers on a constant basis, yet they can’t even enjoy any of those joints for their lab-induced carpal tunnel. 

This has been going on since the smoked out ‘60s when Dr. Coy Waller (again, totally real and not made up name) was director of the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Ole Miss. Coy was coy in his negotiations with the federal government, and was able to talk regulators into allowing him to cultivate marijuana for research. 

UM has secured the government weed growing contract “every three to five years under an open solicitation process based on its proven capabilities of providing pharmaceutical-grade marijuana and marijuana-derived materials to NIDA’s Drug Supply Program,” according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the University of Mississippi. “These cannabis products are used by researchers in the U.S. for various studies, including FDA-approved clinical trials.”

Every three to five years the contract has been renewed, since 1968. That means if you lived through the 70s, 80s and 90s in the U.S., hearing urban legends about the mythical “government weed” or the fabled “G-13” strain, you were hearing legends about Mississippi weed. 

There’s a great pontification into G-13’s origins on the Seedsman blog, in which the Seedsman describes G-13 as a legendary strain in which “so many urban myths have sprouted ... that some don’t even believe (G-13) ever existed.”

The Seedsman presents several theories as to G-13’s beginnings, but says the one thing that’s known for a fact and that is a man named Neville Schoenmakers (fuck off its a real name) got a hold of a clone marked G-13 at some point in the ‘70s.

“Opinions vary but apparently it was given to him by man called Sandy Weinstein, who had a friend working at the government research facility in Mississippi,” the Seedsman writes. “The G13 was found among a batch of Afghani indicas labeled G1 through G23. The G13 was said to be highly superior to the others, sporting fast indoor flowering, massive resin production, excellent potency and extreme hybrid vigor.”

G-13, based on this description, sounds like an awesome strain. But not everyone is stoked on that Mississippi Lab herb. 

In a recent piece for the Washington Post, Colorado-based cannabis company Ripple’s chief executive, Justin Singer, complained about how a company that wishes to test marijuana products in humans for purposes of garnering FDA approval first must get permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

“And then it can use only marijuana products supplied to the National Institute on Drug Abuse by the University of Mississippi,” Singer said. 

The University of Mississippi “offers freeze-dried joints that have been in storage for years and bear no resemblance to any actual cannabis products that people are using in 2022,” Singer added. 

Doesn’t exactly sound like the stuff of legend which spawned so many urban myths that some don’t believe it ever even existed. In light of these claims, Mississippi’s incipient status as a medical marijuana state, and Tate Reeves' attempt at a massive buzz kill, it’s obvious that the time is now for Ole Miss to open up those G-13 archives, demystify their fabled strain, make those freeze-dried joints available to the great people of their state and reclaim Mississippi’s rightful status as a state that’s known for its excellently potent and hybrid-vigor-containing herb.

Also, they need to stop bogarting the supply of weed that can be used for research.