Marijuana Crops Bad for Forests, Spotted Owl
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08. 8.07
It appears that marijuana farming in California is no longer the preserve of the fun-loving hippie, but has become a big, destructive agribusiness. According to Recordnet, when the crop comes out in the fall, they leave behind: "Irrigation tubes that snake for a mile or more over forested ridges. Pesticides that have drained into creeks and entered the food chain, sickening wildlife. Piles of trash and human waste in the most rugged and bucolic drainages. "They basically trash our public lands," said Matt Mathes, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in Vallejo.
Another concern revolves around endangered species. Pesticides are used to keep rodents out of the marijuana; those rodents, including wood rats, are a primary food source for the California spotted owl.
Supporters of legal marijuana say that none of this would happen if it was a legal agricultural product. Bruce Mirken of San Francisco's Marijuana Policy Project notes that ""Marijuana can be grown safely in an environmentally responsible way, or it can be grown dangerously." ::recordnet
If it were legal, it would be grown safely and responsibly, just like tobacco...
Gonna sound like a broken record here, but if it were legal it'd be grown under safer conditions and without the need to hide them in unspoiled wildlife.
Like marijuana or not, its not going to go away. Check the history books folks, its been around for quite a long while.
But I thought the advantage was that it didn't need a lot of irrigation and pesticide? Isn't that why greenies are so ga ga over hemp?
It's nice to see the first two commentors are actually sensible. I agree with both of them, if it were legal it would be safer.
All this article showed was that the problem isn't marijuana, it's growing techniques. So? We have known this for some time now.
Bovis was being sarcastic Webs. Go do some reading.
beats meth labs
Grow it organically, it is a weed after all.
Hemp and marijuana are two different plants.
This is one of those people vs. product things, like "its man that kills, not guns." There are idoits in every industry, including the illegal ones. I don't think it is a legal/illegal issue. Look at the damage Monsanto et al. does.
Maybe weed certification? :-)
Hey, why not legalize, we need the taxes, the hemp, the kids outta the biz, and on, and on, oh, less gunfire and death would be a bonus!
I am termanilly ill and take 200 pain pills a month that are derived from herion/morphene..Both illegal
And very bad for you. If Texas would let me smoke pot the pain pills would be cut in half.
Why can't they make a safer drug out of something ilegal when they are already making a harder drug that doctors LOVE giving out from something just as ilegal...HMMM.
Perhaps it would be true that if legal like tobacco, then marijuana would be grown safely. However, while walking through a tobacco field in West Virginia I observed massive piles of green fertilizer crystals and bags a various pesticides, clearly in larger quantities than would ever be at a MJ grow scene, maybe even more vicious. I think it is a mistake to claim that if legal then the safety to wildlife will be guaranteed. There is nothing analytic about legality and wildlife safety, it is merely a poor assumption.
weed ws here and we got really hi, way b4 cemicals ever hit our reproductive organs and world!
who wants to be low when they can be hi!
This doesn't seem different than the rest of agriculture... do your best to get organic from a source you trust, preferably yourself or a local farmer.
"Marijuana can be grown safely in an environmentally responsible way, or it can be grown dangerously."
NO F***ING DUHHH
Thats like saying, if you have a gun, you might kill someone, or, you might not.
p,s weed is not a drug
p,ss get hi