Does Cannabis Cultivation Have Negative Environmental Impacts?

With legalization spreading across the United States, marijuana sales have boomed and help to boost the local economy. But are there negatives to consider about this rapid expansion?

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The opinion of two researchers at the University of North Carolina and Lancaster University are calling on federal agencies in the United States to fund studies for gathering environmental data about legal cultivation of cannabis. They want to minimize environmental and public health damage caused by this booming industry and help marijuana business be environmentally sustainable.

Colorado has reached cannabis sales revenues of $1 billion which is about the same as grain farming in Colorado. Cannabis revenue is expected to exceed that of the National Football League by 2020. With such a large increase expected, that means there's been a be a lot more growing that might negatively affect the environment, according to these two researchers, William Vizuete and Kirsti Ashworth.

The high temperature requirements for indoor operations, need powerful lights, for tile soil and using two times more water than wine grapes. The authors worry that the excessive water, energy, fertilizer and pesticide demands will affect the environment through local contamination of water, air and soil.

"Reprinted (adapted) with permission from K. Ashworth et al. High Time to Assess the Environmental Impacts of Cannabis Cultivation, Environmental Science & Technology (2017). Copyright 2017 American Chemical Society."

Illegal outdoor operations in northern California show that water was being extracted from streams which threatened the aquatic ecosystem, and growth nutrients, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides and are back in the environment and damaging aquatic life.

The impact of air pollution for the workers inside growing facilities, as well as the degradation of outdoor air quality from the emissions of industrial scale production is also of concern to the authors. Current data mostly comes from illegal cannabis growing operations which makes it harder to understand the full impact of cannabis cultivation.

Dr. Ashworth said "[the] illegal status of marijuana has prevented us from understanding the detrimental impacts that this industrial scale operation has on the environment and public health. This is an industry undergoing a historic transition, presenting an historic opportunity to be identified as a progressive, world-leading example of good practice and environmental stewardship."

Dr Vizuete added that "[generating] accurate data in all the areas we discussed offers significant potential to reduce energy consumption and environmental harm, protect public health and ultimately, improve cultivation methods."

At first I thought this was a hit-piece, but it makes sense to try to asses how cannabis growing impacts the environment that the growing and harvesting is done within.

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References:

• Legal marijuana sales creating escalating damage to the environment
• K. Ashworth et al. High Time to Assess the Environmental Impacts of Cannabis Cultivation, Environmental Science & Technology (2017). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b06343

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2017-02-22, 8:50am