The Landscape-Scarring, Energy-Sucking, Wildlife-Killing Reality of Pot Farming

[staank]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/marijuana-weed-pot-farming-environmental-impacts

From the article:
To meet demand, researchers say, the acreage dedicated to marijuana grows in the Emerald Triangle has doubled in the past five years. Like the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, this "green rush," as it is known locally, has brought great wealth at a great cost to the environment. Whether grown in bunkers lit with pollution-spewing diesel generators, or doused with restricted pesticides and sown on muddy, deforested slopes that choke off salmon streams during the rainy season, this "pollution pot" isn't exactly high quality, or even a quality high. "The cannabis industry right now is in sort of the same position that the meatpacking industry was in before The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair," says Stephen DeAngelo, the founder of Oakland's Harborside Health Center, a large medical marijuana dispensary. "It simply isn't regulated, and the upshot is that nobody really knows what's in their cannabis."

 

[Swamp Thang]

I may catch some flak for making this observation, but reading posts in the Advanced Botany section of this forum, I have really been taken aback by the sheer volume of chemicals, hormones, insecticides, and home-brew concoctions that get dumped on weed crops by commercial growers, in order to maximize profits.

I damn near killed myself smoking buds that I had sprayed with an overly concentrated aspirin solution, and thus swore never to add ANY chemicals to my grows, and more importantly to never consume commercially produced marijuana for as long as I live - a decision which sadly rules out the tours of smoking duty that I had long dreamed of embarking on in Amsterdam or Denver.

 

[furrywall11]

Indoor growing is _very_ bad for the environment. check out this carbon dioxide calculator to get an idea of what a 12kw grow is equivalent too

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html#results

 

[Crocodile OG]

The same could be said for regular agriculture and industry too.

Just another way to demonize weed.

 

[z-ro]

Thought this was going to be another sensationalist lost coast outpost article. We have heard it all before, this argument sounds like a broken record. Save the fish!!!!

 

[stoned-trout]

The same could be said for regular agriculture and industry too.

Just another way to demonize weed.

we got a winner

 

[mojave green]

I damn near killed myself smoking buds that I had sprayed with an overly concentrated aspirin solution, and thus swore never to add ANY chemicals to my grows, and more importantly to never consume commercially produced marijuana for as long as I live - a decision which sadly rules out the tours of smoking duty that I had long dreamed of embarking on in Amsterdam or Denver.

preach brother preach!

 

[whatthe215]

really interesting how them compare the current MMJ scene to the meatpacking industry prior to Sinclair's 'The Jungle' which exposed the ugly side of unregulated meat processing to the public.

very very accurate regarding a large portion of commercial growers.

 

[ion]

save the planet, kill yourself.

 

[FunkBomb]

George Carlin had a lot to say about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c

-Funk

 

[theJointedOne]

That article is bullshit.

The fact is the media hypes up the shitty growers while ignoring the many who are stewards of the land

fuck steve d'angelo.

 

[thelaughingman]

..yup end marijuana prohibition

 

[soil margin]

Commercial growers do use far too many chemicals. This isn't unique to cannabis though, all conventional food and biofuel production uses a ridiculous amount of input chemicals. I'm more concerned with the toxic algae blooms the size of Texas popping up in the Gulf of Mexico than I am with a few streams no longer being usable by the salmon.