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The unusually high biological plasticity of Cannabis sativa is manifested in its seemingly endless varieties of both the fibre and the drug type. This capability, together with an aggressive propagation capacity, has made cannabis the most universally available raw material, growing or cultivated, in every continent of the world. The same capability of biological plasticity and diversity makes the plant a perfect target for all manner of human experimentation. Recent breeding efforts have yielded fibre hemp varieties for large-scale agricultural production with ever lower and stable levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), thus opening up new market opportunities for hemp as a raw material for industry. At the same time, clandestine horticultural experimentation, using new technologies and widely accessible information, has led to the development of new cannabis types with extremely high THC concentrations in the flowering top. The latest fruit of such clandestine research is the rapidly proliferating indoor cannabis cultivation to be found in North America and Europe. This "high-tech" clandestine industry appears to have had a radical impact on the American and European illicit cannabis market and may in the future increasingly displace traditional products by offering higher reliability and potency at lower risk. It exploits hesitant or lenient drug control policy and divergent attitudes among Governments and the public at large in the major consumer areas.
The present paper reviews some of the typical characteristics of the above development and assesses actual and potential implications.
