It's pure rumour, nothing else. Nobody ever produced GMO weed... at least so far... and for one reason. Cannabis industry has been illegal for decades, which means no breeder had an access to a specialised lab, where he could modify his material genetically.
And it's not really a task you can accomplish in your basement without the funding, and definitely not without an expertise. But there's also another reason, weed breeders and growers are practically unanimous in their rejection of GMO, so this won't fly unless CRISPR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR) gets adopted.
Ah, see I don't know a lot about it with MJ, BUT I have seen a lot of material, I'll see if I can find it... suggesting that Monsanto and CO have been creating genetically modified strains in preparation to take over the legalized MJ growing in the US as it becomes legal much like they have done with corn, wheat, oats and soy. I'll have to see if I can find the info before I say much more about it. They would have the resources to do so if they wanted.
I would think that many weed growers would reject GMOs. I'm not sure what CRISPR is so I'll have a look at your link! Thanks!
What they did to take over other industries was sneaky and if people had known the consequences of signing the contracts ahead of time with those big ag. companies, companies that are trying to own all seed/food source everywhere, many of them would not have signed. When they come out to speak about it they loose their entire life's work farms etc, and find they have gag orders placed upon them and there is nothing they can do to get out of the trap they find themselves in without loosing everything. So many people don't know what's happened.
It was my impression they were attempting similar tactics through crooked govt contracts in the US with the legalization of weed. (Like in my state I was told, though I'd need to verify it that one of the few people being granted a license to grow for medicinal purposes is the son of a govt official. That would make it easy for a lot of people to just say ok to GMO pot if they have created it because people are desperate to have it legalized and have been told untruths about GMOs and the potential harm they could be causing. I will see what I can find and get back to you with it. :)
Thank you for taking the time to share what you know about this!
It'd be another way to monopolise another market, but so far weed is still federally illegal, and they don't want to deal with federal risks unless they buy everyone and legalise it :D Hmm that would be fun, wouldn't it?
But jokes aside yes they'd be money for it, cause this whole legal weed industry has a lot of problems so far, and one of the most evident is lack of stabilised varieties, which they'd have to develop first... it's chaos really in terms of commercially viable cannabis genetics, which is owed to many years of clandestine breeding.
We have very few landrace/heirloom varieties left and a lot of polyhybrids that produce 10 different genotypes. Sure they'd have the funding to get ahead, but there's another problem, they'd have to change the name, cause NOBODY WOULD BUY MONSANTO WEED and even then they'd face the risk of a watchdog from a cannabis community, that would point to rebranding efforts.
It's not impossible for them to pursue this in the future, but so far I'd doubt they see it as a viable investment. And they have sth very serious going on, which they have to bring home if they want to make their shareholders happy:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-canola-disease-insight/seed-firms-scramble-to-stop-a-cancer-in-canadas-cash-crop-idUSKCN1G60J6