Talk:Ernest Small

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Page scope

Ernest Small is a biography of a living Canadian botanist, limited to his published work and public career: his cannabis garden in Ottawa in 1971, his testimony on the species question, his classifications of Cannabis (1976, 2015, 2020) and the herbarium sheets he determined. Its table lists the accession pages whose determiner field names E. Small.

Sourcing

Career facts follow the author biography on his publisher's page for Cannabis: A Complete Guide (2017), the byline of his 1975 paper in the Bulletin on Narcotics, the Harvard Index of Botanists and the pages of the bodies that gave his awards. The cannabis sections follow the Le Dain Commission's report (1972), the opinion in United States v. Rothberg (1972), his own papers, McPartland and Small (2020), the voucher labels published through GBIF and the later literature named in the article. Discuss conflicts and corrections here.

Discussion

Posts and dates of his career

The publisher's biography (2017) gives the doctorate in plant evolution from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1969, and continuous employment since then in the research branch of the federal agriculture department, where he holds the status of principal research scientist. It names no dissertation and no institutions for his earlier degrees. The 1975 paper lists the degrees B.A., B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. and places him at the Biosystematics Research Institute. The American Society of Plant Taxonomists lists him in 1974 at the Plant Research Institute, Ottawa; the Canadian Botanical Association lists him in 1995 at Agriculture Canada, Ottawa; the Order of Canada citation (2017) calls him a principal scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The Library of Congress name authority and the Harvard Index of Botanists give the birth year 1940 and no place.

Honours

The publisher's biography also names a fellowship of the Linnean Society of London, the Agcellence Award and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, without dates. The awarding bodies themselves date the Cooley Award (1974), the Lawson Medal (1995), the Lane Anderson Award (books of 2009) and the Order of Canada (2017).

The standard medicinal strain

The publisher's biography credits him with developing a standard strain on which all licensed medicinal marijuana in Canada was based for more than a decade, supplying over 100,000 patients. The biography names neither the strain nor the years.

Size of the 1971 planting

The voucher label headings speak of 350 stocks. The Le Dain report gives several hundred strains grown at the Experimental Farm in 1971 and over 300 strains in the cannabinoid study. Small's 1975 paper gives about 350 stocks grown outdoors, more in greenhouses, and about 2,500 plants scored for 47 characters. Population numbers on the vouchers published through GBIF run up to 400. GBIF lists about 285 vouchers of the plantings at the New York Botanical Garden and 288 at the University of South Florida, together more than 570. Many New York sheets of 1971 name the collector as "Dept. of Agriculture, Ottawa, Canada" and others as E. Small; all are determined by E. Small.

The chemotype papers

The Nature paper is Cannabinoid phenotypes in Cannabis sativa (1973, vol. 245, pp. 147–148). The reference list of McPartland and Small (2020) gives the Lloydia paper as Common cannabinoid phenotypes in 350 stocks of Cannabis, Lloydia 36: 144–16, with the end page cut short; the end page is not confirmed. Later authors give the thresholds of the three types in slightly different words: Fischedick (2017) describes type II as high in both THC and CBD.

Court cases

Of the published court opinions on the species question, United States v. Rothberg (1972) names him as a witness. His 1975 paper speaks of numerous occasions on which he and Cronquist testified for the state, and the publisher's biography of dozens of appearances as an expert botanical witness; neither names the cases. The Species Problem in Cannabis (1979) appeared in two volumes, Science (iv, 218 pages) and Semantics (iv, 156 pages); library catalogues give it more than one ISBN.

The 0.3 per cent line in law

McPartland and Small (2020) say that numerous countries took the 0.3 per cent criterion into their regulations, and name none. Stats and colleagues (2023) trace the limit to the 1976 paper and report that its authors called it arbitrary.

Dates of the determinations

GBIF gives the determination of Koelz 692 at the New York Botanical Garden as 1 August 1975; a first of the month can stand for the month alone. The Harvard index dates his determinations of the Kandahar sheets to 16 February and 16 March 1976. The Vienna catalogue dates his two determinations of Rechinger 32428 to 1974 and 1975. Several sheets in the table carry his name with no year.

Book dates

Cannabis: A Complete Guide went online through CRC Press on 14 October 2016 (Crossref); the publisher's page gives copyright 2017. The publisher's page gives 597 and 598 pages in different places; Open Library gives 567. Mark Merlin's review in Economic Botany is quoted from the publisher's page, which reprints it with others.

Label name and author abbreviation

The Harvard Index of Botanists gives his standard label name and his Brummitt and Powell author abbreviation as E. Small. Names published with Cronquist are written (Lam.) E.Small & Cronquist in herbarium databases, without the space. Harvard also keeps a separate collector entry under Small, Ernie, with his collections at DAO.