I thought all the libertarians and dopers said that legalization was going to fix everything. "Toxic chemicals from illegal marijuana farms hidden deep in California's forests are showing up in rivers and streams that feed the state's water supply, prompting fears that humans and animals may be at risk, data reviewed by Reuters show. The presence of potentially deadly pollutants in eight Northern and Central California watersheds is the latest sign of damage to the environment from thousands of illegal cannabis plantations, many of them run by drug cartels serving customers in other states, according to law enforcement. California accounts for more than 90 percent of illegal U.S. marijuana farming. There are as many as 50,000 marijuana farms in California according to state estimates, and even though voters legalized the drug last November, only about 16,000 growers are expected to seek licenses when commercial cultivation becomes legal next year. Many of the illegal growers use fertilizers and pesticides long restricted or banned in the United States, including carbofuran and zinc phosphide. The chemicals have turned thousands of acres of forest into waste dumps so toxic that law enforcement officers have been hospitalized after inadvertently touching plants and equipment, and scores of animals have died. Carbofuran is in the water, and it's not supposed to be," said Mourad Gabriel, an ecologist who works with law enforcement on marijuana contamination issues. "How are we going to mitigate something like that?" Carbofuran poisoning can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, uncontrollable muscle twitching, convulsions and even death, according to the National Institutes of Health. Poisoning by diazinon, another chemical Gabriel has found in streams, can cause difficulty breathing, weakness, blue lips and fingernails, convulsion and coma, the agency says. Gabriel, who has visited more than 100 sites in California and is widely considered the leading authority on toxins at marijuana farms, said about half the streams he studied in eight watersheds in the state's prime pot-growing regions tested positive for contaminants." https://www.usnews.com/news/us/arti...-illegal-pot-farms-seep-into-california-water Okay dopers.....convince me that pot has no negative impacts.
All the more reason for legalizing it and regulating the pot farms just like any other agricultural product is regulated
It's already legal in CA. Has been for almost a year. "Some streams tested positive more than a year after law enforcement cleared illegal grows from nearby land." So, no....regulation doesn't necessarily fix the behavior. Legalization hasn't fixed people who engage in illegal behavior. I am not against it. I said already, smoke it till you die, and like anything else, I don't care as long as it doesn't impact other people. So cultivation of 90% of the dope that people are smoking around the US is having a devastating impact on local environments and water supply. When does that come in to play? I'm contending it might never go away completely. Dope smokers should boycott Cali dope. Is it that high? How much does it cost for one of y'all to get high all weekend? And if legal weed remains costly, then legalizing it has a whole new set of issues and unintended consequences.
Like Bengal spoke to, legalization and government regulation is the key. It's the guerrilla grow sites that are the culprits and it's not just their poisoning of the watershed either,.. smokers have no clue about what pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers they are inhaling. Needs regulation,.. the Smoke shops here must have their products analyzed for trace chemicals. Turns out cannabis oils tend to retain pesticides, caused quite a clusterfuck here before the state and marijuana industry resolved the problem and made the product safe. Guerrilla sites exist because of, greed vs the police, jacked up prices being the root cause,.. marijuana is simple to grow, a pound of marijuana bud should cost the same as a pound of tomatoes,.. instead high-grade costs $200 an ounce, minimum,.. making it illegal is what caused the problems.
This is an easy one. You should be able to grow any plant you want, but you should not be able to use dangerous chemicals in the process. In 50 years people will view marijuana prohibition the way we view alcohol prohibition today: a silly and expensive experiment that empowers organized crime. Same with gambling. Trying to keep people from the vices and intoxicants that they like is a fool's errand.
Pot has plenty of negative impacts. It kills brain cells and impairs. Just like a lot of things. It is also bad for your lungs if smoked. Who has ever made the argument that it has zero negative impacts? What pot doesn't do is contaminate soil or water. That would be the illegal chemicals. If I used toxic lead paint to paint my car and my neighbors got sick, would you say cars are the problem?
I doubt that government regulation will fix this problem. Look at the run off of legal fertilizers that get into the Mississippi River and then create the huge algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico that kill millions of fish.
