Fingerprinting technology could identify marijuana

DNA fingerprinting technology might soon lay to rest any fears that Canada's newly approved medical marijuana could easily be funnelled into illegal street sales.

For the past few years, law-enforcement research scientists in the United States, initially aided by their RCMP colleagues in Canada, have been developing a way to genetically fingerprint pot.

The research, discussed in today's edition of the British magazine New Scientist, has taken a plant gene identification technology originally created for patenting strains of corn and rice and expanded it to identify strains of marijuana.

"One of the things that we had thought would be a great application was if you keep a fingerprint file of the legal stuff and then compare it to the illegal stuff. Then you could definitely see if someone was moving it around in a way which was inappropriate," said Heather Miller Coyle, a research scientist with the Connecticut State Forensic Science Laboratory.

There is no way at present for officials in this country to determine when and if medical marijuana has been sold into the illicit market, Health Canada spokeswoman Jirina Vlk said.