By Dave Shiflett (Bloomberg) Does hemp get horny? It appears so, and some marijuana plants may pine away for humans, according to “The Botany of Desire,” a fascinating film airing on PBS Oct 28 at 8 p.m. New York time. The film takes a “plant’s eye” view of the relationship between humans and marijuana, tulips, apples, and potatoes. While we might think we’re in the command position, author/host Michael Pollan makes a good case these allegedly passive partners have seduced us into doing their bidding by appealing to our desires for intoxication, beauty, sweetness and control. “They’ve been using us,” he says and by show’s end you’re likely to agree. Apples originated in Central Asia, and in the beginning there were thousands of types, though most were very bitter. Sweetness, says Pollan, was their ticket out of the forest. Bears ate the sweetest and excreted their seeds in ever-expanding horizons. Humans eventually took a bite and were hooked, exporting apples down the Silk Road to Europe and later America, where they found an evangelist in the person of John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. The Appleseed saga underscores the love-hate nature of these relationships, Pollan explains. It wasn’t long before Americans started using apples to make hard cider, the go-to drink for children and presidents alike. John Adams started his day with a couple of belts and by the 1830s chronic cider intoxication had become a national menace. Suddenly, apples were seen as evil, but it was too late. They had used humans to get out in the world and left them with a hangover. Pretty smart for an allegedly dumb piece of fruit. Tulips, which also originated in Central Asia, seduced humans by gratifying our desire for beauty. Like Helen of Troy they drove some people entirely nuts. During the “tulip mania” of the 1630s Dutch investors paid the equivalent of a contemporary Manhattan townhouse -- which Pollan values at $10-$15 million -- for a single bulb. Like all investment bubbles this one finally burst, unleashing a wave of tulip hatred symbolized by a mad professor who roamed the streets with a stick, beating the scapegoats to shreds. Yet the love of tulips, and other flowers, is very much with us today, symbolized by the Aalsmeer Flower Market, housed in a building bigger than 200 football fields. The section on marijuana reminds us that plants with intoxicating qualities will always find suitors, even though the relationship can land them in prison. It wasn’t always that way. In the 19th century Americans legally used cannabis to combat labor pain, asthma, and rheumatism. Eventually the war on drugs drove growers indoors, where they created a strain of pot with a mind of its own. One planter, whose identity is withheld, says that when his partner is gone for a few days, “the plants know it” and they “don’t do as well.” Even weeds get the blues, it seems. Like humans, they can experience a romantic rising of the sap. When male plants are removed from the growing area ”sexually frustrated” female plants excrete large amounts of resin, apparently in the hope of attracting male spores. The final segment features potatoes, first cultivated in the Andes 8000 years ago. They seduce men by giving them control over hunger, though this can be illusory. The Irish developed a dependency on one type of potato – the Lumper – which was wiped out by an air-borne blight in 1845. One in eight citizens died as a result. We are creating a similar “monoculture,” the film warns, because of our French fry infatuation. Americans consume 7.5 billion pounds a year, many of which are produced from the Russet Burbank. The film stresses the importance of diversifying the crop and the health benefits of organic farming. Pollan is a thoughtful and engaging host, often reminding us that plants really don’t have minds or agendas. It just seems that way. There’s little doubt who’ll have the last laugh. One reasonably assumes tulips will be dancing in the sun long after the human race has converted itself to fertilizer.
