Upon waking, folks began to notice that THEY were here! It seemed impossible, but alas, the truth finally became clear. The arrival had happened. There had been an invasion of foreigners to the vegetation. Creepy crawlers like spider mites, and microscopic organisms damn near invisible to the naked eye. But that wasn’t all. Adding to the horror were things like stems, seeds, paint chips, and hair from multiple creatures. Hair! Naturally, panic ensued. Minds raced. People began gathering armaments to defend their crops, and their lives. And at about the point that insanity nearly took over, two brazen figures strolled down the still-dark street, looking, at first, like angels. The image of wings folded, however, when it became clear what the white illumination stemmed from…lab coats. These saviors were scientists.
Though their ammunition differed, they came prepared. They had a standard operating procedure. A plan. And as they unpacked their kit, removing items like tweezers to hold the slithering things, and microscopes to magnify the horrific landscape, one by one, the cannabis farmers began to have their flowers tested. How deep and widespread was the outbreak?
Like skilled surgeons, the scientists removed this alien matter from the cannabis. They approximated how much of this or that invader they found present. They wrote it down. They piled up the carcasses and the debris, and separated the doomed and resuscitated flowers. Using indigenous tools, a quick waft or two provided sensory data of the plant’s bouquet. Professionals that they were, they knew what the specific chemovar being interrogated ought to smell like. Thus sent the putrid into the pile of the doomed.
The scientists also looked for imposters, things that shouldn’t be present in these flowers. Substances made to visually resemble the treasured trichomes to the untrained eye, or to add mass. Nothing would get past these hired guns.
It was this testing that the townsfolk recognized was important, harvest-saving, and necessary. They knew they’d have to spend some of their profits to ensure the invasion wouldn’t return. Watching the doomed flowers get carted off to be incinerated, though, wasn’t comforting. Not only were those flowers intended to help the farmers earn a living; they also knew of the countless friends, relatives, and fellow Earthlings depending on them for their crops.
Happy Halloween to our readers, and especially to those scientists at worldwide cannabis testing labs defending consumers from the invasion of foreign matter. Guardians of Cannabis: you are appreciated, and you are known.
