Marijuana and the Environment

As I was surfing through facebook today, I saw an interesting post about medical marijuana and the effects it has on the environment. This immediately reminded me of the Silent Spring video we just finished today.

The outdoor growers often time use pesticides and rat poisons to ensure that they get a higher output, but the problem is these methods are damaging the ecosystem. In California, some of these marijuana growers are going into deep forest and spreading d-Con (rat poison) to protect their crop. Two endangered spotted owls have already been tested positive for having this poison in their system, and just like Rachel Carson's idea of how the system of life are all interrelated and are affected all together, a rat poisoned by d-Con is poisoning the Pacific Fisher (part the weasel family) when the Pacific Fisher eat the rats for food.

Lit. Patrick Foy from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife gets report from neighbors about dead fishes turning up. The growers are contaminating the water sources and destroying the local creeks. This relates to those reports in Carson's time where people started discovering dead birds after the wide spread of DDT.

When constructing a place for the marijuana to grow, some business build the place on mountaintops. They smooth out the hills and put the roads and dams, which can block the flow of the streams, cutting the water supply to the lower part of the area. Any living thing that requires water and lives between the top to the bottom of the mountaintop is now affected. Many people are unaware of this, and many businesses either don't know as well or choose to ignore it. It can take a while for the ecosystem to show obvious signs of damage, and by then, it might be too late.

In one of the article, it mentions about rabbits starting to get addicted to marijuana and losing their sense of ability to run away after ingesting it. This is dangerous, for these rabbits can be prey upon more easily and a decrease in their populations may decrease the predator which feed on them.

Sadly, even though DEA did inform it to a Utah Senate panel, the panel still approved the bill and sent it to the full Senate.This really reminds me of the abuse of pesticides in the 1960s, and how many people were not aware of the effects it has on the environment and how there are people in the government that do not seem to care much about it.

What do you guys think will happen? Do you think Utah will legalize medical marijuana? And for the states that have already legalized it, do you think the people should be informed of the effects it has on the ecosystems?

Sources/Read More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/dea-warns-of-stoned-rabbits-if-utah-passes-medical-marijuana/?tid=sm_fb

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/marijuana-crops-in-california-threaten-forests-and-wildlife.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&amp&

http://www.ibtimes.com/how-marijuana-farms-impact-environment-1729921