Radiation levels & effect on MMJ in USA/Canada

[Puffman420]

Hey 420

As a patient who relies heavily on Medical Marijuana to get by day to day each and every day the latest news im hearing has me very concerned.

My concern is regarding the current radiation levels in the pacific being reported and the levels being detected in marine life all along the west coast and along other coastlines.

Most if not all nutrients and soil mixes include fish, fish meal, kelp and / or salts, minerals and other marine and sea by products in their main ingredients which are used to manufacture nutrients and soil mixes for edible crops.

Home medical growers are potentially using radioactive contaminated ingredients in feeding programs that are manufactured from ingredients sourced from the ocean. These organic nutrients and soil mixes are often also used by the companies who mass produce our seeds and organic mmj sold to the public via dispensaries across the united states.

If the fish, kelp and other materials being used in the manufacture of nutrients are contaminated by the fallout of radiation from Japan then are we not ingesting contaminated MMJ as it has potentially been cultivated with contaminated feed or soil additives???. Are we potentially introducing small levels of radiative material into our home grow rooms each time we are using these products?

Some of the cannabis seeds we buy are also produced from breeders who are situated along the effected coastlines and they are also cultivated potentially with compromised organic feed.

This a real issue for our health as the growers and breeders are likely producing radioactive contaminated seed and mmj unwittingly and we the public are snapping it up for medicine and we may be doing more harm than good without knowing.


Fukushima disaster radiation detected off Canada's coast | Environment | The Guardian

 

[Canresearcher]

Actually, I have a background in Radiation and Radioactive materials as I have worked with them during my time as a part of a Hazmat team. I'll attempt to explain why measuring material from Fukushima is kind of difficult. Also a little bit more about Radiation.

The amount of Radioactive material (fallout if you'd like to use this term) in Seasweeds, fish etc from Fukushima Dai-ichi is extremely minuscule as a great deal has been dispersed into the ocean. We are talking concentrations on the order of pG/l. ( less than the amount of Arsenic,Mercury, Cadmium naturally occurring in tap water.) Isotopes being looked for are (Cs137 and Cs134)
This is far less than than the natural occurring isotopes of Radon, Uranium(238/235), Thorium and traces of Radium.
Also, if you happen to have a MH lamp, CMH, or HPS as your grow lights you'll also be using Radioactive material to assist/ionize the arc in the arc chamber. The anode and Cathode both are doped (no pun intended) with (Thoria) or Thorium Oxide which is strongly Radioactive.

In growing medium and materials you'll have plenty of fertilizers and supplements that are Radioactive. Any fertilizers that contain potassium will have significant quantities of K40 (Potassium 40). This is a very strongly and easily detectable naturally radioactive isotope of K39. This is what causes Bananas, Beans, and peanuts...etc to be moderately Radioactive and be detectable with standard radiation detection equipment. There is even a banana equivalent dose.
Banana equivalent dose - Wikipedia


So in summary, I would be far more worried about the hazardous chemicals in some of the artificial flowering juices for nugs than worry about material from Fukushima contaminating your growing medium.

The map shown above is very misleading, as these are general long term ( +20 years) radiation monitoring stations and not specific for Fukushima contamination.

Hopefully I've helped explain a few things in the article better. 1.4Bq/L is an insanely small amount of material to be worried about.

 

[Icemud]

Great post you guys

I've thought about it quite a bit since the disaster happened, however compared to the 2000+ nuclear bombs that have been detonated over the past 50 years, Fukushima probably doesn't compare to the radiation from the 50's, 60s, 70s and 80s that was released. They have even shown connections from the nuclear tests to high thyroid cancer rates in the upper midwest states due to the jet stream and how the fallout was carried. I wonder if that also has any bearing on how many Men of that era are bald, just a thought but its very possible.

Matter of fact, even though its debated, During the filming of the John Wayne movie "The Conqueror" most of the filming was done downwind of the nuclear tests in Nevada, and over the years almost half of the cast developed cancer and about 1/2 of those died years later due to cancer. The filming was done right around the same times that Nevada was heavily being used as a nuclear testing ground.

I believe Colorado has huge deposits of uranium in the ground and they typically have a much higher level of radiation than many other areas of the US.

Chicago has a ton of radiation under the city, I worked on a EPA Hazmat project to help dig up and eradicate the Thorium that was spread throughout the city of Chicago and the suburbs in the 70's and 80s. Actually the town I grew up in had a huge 10+ year battle against the Kerr Mcgee corp because they tore down their manufacturing plant and used the waste material as yard fills, and my hometown was very hot for many many years while I grew up.

I have wondered though about the cannabis plant and its ability to pick up radioactive materials and heavy metals, because some of us including myself use azomite, and other rock powders which have trace amounts of lead, and uranium in them. Even our city water here in California has trace amounts of uranium, and just this morning the sacramento area has been dectecting very high amounts of uranium in the water. I remember reading that back during the chernoble disaster they planted hemp and cannabis to help clear the soil of the radiation, not sure what the results were but do remember reading it back a while ago.

Anyhow I don't think we have too much to worry about yet, at least for now until NATO and russia make amends, or don't..Then Fukashima may not even be a worry compared to what could happen.

There is actually a very creepy documentary I watched about the villages surrounding Chernobyle, that show that the rate of birth defects is amazingly high, and they even have special identification for the people and wont let them procreate because the radiation has messed up their DNA so bad that they don't want it to spread to the gene pool, therefore the people are pretty much confined to their radioactive towns.

 

[Puffman420]

Here is further information for those interested
ENENews.com ? Energy News

&

Either way i don't believe what industry pr firms are saying.
I don't believe that all is fine and we are safe from contamination as we are being led to believe.

 

[Canresearcher]

I don't believe all is fine either. The Japanese government in 2011 lied to the people of Japan and then lied to the international community about how bad the situation was. Saving face was more important than to admit they needed help. The result was a near Chernobyl. Luckily it wasn't. However groundwater contamination around the site is pretty bad.
Safecast group Maps | Safecast is doing a decent job monitoring the situation. The group was formed independent of government immediately after 2011/03/13 involvement by groups of open-source savvy techs. I helped finance a small part of their project.
I've also gone on monitoring missions with my equipment. so far I have found very little that could be immediately detectable. We are well within normal range here on the beach side.



@ Azomite is awesome stuff. It is also used to make rock dust for tomatoes. It does contain other trace (rare earths)elements, but not heavy metals. It's a volcanic ash product. There is a plan to put Azomite into use to control sudden oak death disease as research has found it jacks up plants' immune systems.

 

[Puffman420]

The result was a near Chernobyl. Luckily it wasn't.

The Cherbobyl accident was 1/4 the size of Fukushima reactors and Chernobyl was only a 30% meltdown and stopped after 10 days. Fukushima had four 100% meltdown melt through and melt-outs plus missing fuel pool that are equal to at least 30 melted nuclear reactor cores.

Fukushima reactor 3 alone not counting the fuel pool is openly admitted by media to be millions of times worse than any reactor on this planet bar nothing. That is because of the Mox fuel used in the missing reactor 3 melted and missing core was consisting of old nuclear missiles already unstable from the chain reaction and sitting in a bunker for decades.

The disposition from Fukushima air born fallout should be viewed as the reality that it takes 3 days for the aerosol and atomized reactors and fuel pools to start to reach north America. All the official ocean and air dispersal models from university's and government around the world are based upon a single reactor not four reactors being melted down with melt through and melt outs nor the 4 spent fuel pools full of reactor cores hemorrhaging into the air and ocean all day every day, not at all just a single plume from one reactor, in reality its a new plume 1440 minutes a day every day forever.

Remember the ocean is not that big when you take into context everyday 300 tons of radioactive water is hemorrhaging into the pacific. Well if it was just one day maybe i could look the other way but its daily for over 4 years now with no end in sight. This is why we are seeing such mass die offs of marine life and why I would advise anyone using fish and kelp products in their gardens to perhaps revise their nutrient lines to safeguard themselves.

cheers

 

[Weaselcracker]

Very interesting thread. and while I'm very interested in the subject, I have to disagree with the idea that radiation levels are the cause of species decline in our oceans, or an immediate concern for us in general. For the people who live near nuclear accidents or test sites, yes.
Actually the ocean is a very big place in which to dump 300 tons of radioactive water per day. It's still just not big enough to handle all the other stuff we are doing to it year after year. The Fukushima situation is interesting and I followed the events there closely, but is very very far from North America and the radiation levels we are getting over here are incredibly minuscule, as Canresearcher pointed out.
I live an island hopping life on the Pacific coast and live and travel on the ocean every day. Life here is deeply intertwined with the ocean and it has supplied my food and livelihood for the last 4 decades. I suppose I'm just pointing out the obvious depressing facts, but radiation here is the least of our problems. Overfishing, mass clear cutting destroying our forests and salmon spawning streams, toxins from machinery, cars, boats, airplanes, toxic runoff of all kinds, poisons we dump down our drains and flush down toilets, the crazy warming trends we've been experiencing- all these things dwarf any concern about radiation levels. I agree that nuclear radiation is horrible stuff- but I feel like it's sort of like worrying about the leaky tap in the basement when the whole house is on fire. I hope you don't take this as a negative comment on your thread, it's not.

 

[Canresearcher]

I suggest anyone looking to compare Fukushima to Chernobyl read the article.
The 2 are far different in magnitude and area affected.
Fukushima while serious, is minuscule in terms of fallout.

Chernobyl disaster - Wikipedia.


I completely agree with Weaselcracker, issues in our oceans are NOT due to Fukushima, rather irresponsible local population disposing of plastics and garbage, over fishing, and a record El-nino that has now entered a third up-phase. Warm water tends to create low oxygen zones. This creates a habitat ripe for toxic bacteria and algae to flourish...
It is not a result of Radiation, that I can assure you of.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I live in one of the few wild places left to us and care passionately about the natural world, and it's a daily heartbreak to me what we are doing to the planet. It's not that I don't care about nuclear radiation. It's just that it simply isn't on the list of many ongoing catastrophes we face here daily. Potentially it is, yes, but thankfully for now it's not a reality here. I think we have to look at the facts and open our eyes as much as possible to the realities of what we face if we are to have any hope of tackling our problems.

 

[Richard Richardson]

Here is further information for those interested
ENENews.com ? Energy News

Either way i don't believe what industry pr firms are saying.
I don't believe that all is fine and we are safe from contamination as we are being led to believe.

No-one is safe from radioactive contamination, but why only believe the stories that a fear-mongering website is telling you?

ENENews, or Energy News, is a fear mongering anti-nuclear news aggregator that was created in response to the Fukushima I nuclear accident. The site tends to have three different types of posts: posts that imply the Fukushima accident has poisoned the entire Pacific Ocean and adjacent coastlines (as if a single nuclear accident could do such a thing) and that "They" are covering up the true scale of the disaster. The site also features posts that report on any and every case of animal death and disease that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and adjacent coastlines, and posts that claim that the Fukushima reactors are seconds away from exploding again and releasing more pollution.

Source - ENENews - RationalWiki