June 2011
FEATURES
The Southwest Portland Post • 5
Dear EarthTalk: I heard someone say
that legalizing pot—as Californians
considered doing last year—would
benefit the environment. How would
that be?
-- William T., Portland, OR
It is well known that legalizing pot
could have great economic benefits in
California and elsewhere by allowing
the government to tax it (like it now
does on liquor and cigarettes).
In addition, legalization would end
expensive and ongoing operations to
eradicate pot, and keep millions of
otherwise innocent and non-violent
marijuana offenders out of already over-
burdened federal and state prisons. But
what you might not know is that legal-
izing pot could also pay environmental
dividends as well.
Nikki Gloudeman, a senior fellow
at Mother Jones magazine, reports on
the change.org website that the current
system of growing pot—surreptitious
growers illegally colonizing remote for-
est lands and moving pesticides, waste
and irrigation tubes into otherwise
pristine ecosystems—is nothing short
of a toxic scourge.
Legalizing pot, Gloudeman said,
would clean things up substantially, as
the growing would both eliminate the
strain on public lands and meet higher
standards for the use and disposal of
toxic substances.
Legalization would also reduce the
environmental impacts of smuggling
across the U.S./Mexico border, said
Gloudeman: “Cartels routinely use
generators, diesel storage tanks and
animal poison to preserve their cache,
Legalizing pot , some say, would eliminate many negative environmental impacts associated with clandestine growing
and illegal smuggling. It would also likely open the door for the legalization of hemp (right-hand image), a relative of
the cannabis plant that can't get you high but could help us sustainably meet a good amount of our fiber and fuel needs.
(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)
when the border area is surrounded by
more than 4 million acres of sensitive
federal wilderness.”
Also, legalizing pot would move its
production out into the open, literally,
meaning that growers would no longer
need to rack up huge energy costs to
keep their illegal indoor growing opera-
tions lit up by artificial light.
This means that the energy consump-
tion and carbon footprint of marijuana
growers would go way down, as the
light the plants need for photosynthesis
could be provided more naturally by
the sun.
Yet another green benefit of legalizing
marijuana would be an end to the de-
structive eradication efforts employed
by law enforcement at bust sites, where
the crop and the land they are rooted in
are sometimes subjected to harsh chemi-
cal herbicides for expedited removal.
The legalization of pot in the U.S.
would also likely open the door to the
legal production of hemp, a variety of
the same Cannabis plant that contains
much lower amounts of the psychoac-
tive drug, THC. Proponents say hemp
could meet an increasingly larger per-
centage of our domestic fiber and fuel
needs.
Cannabis, the plant from which
marijuana and hemp is derived, grows
quickly without the need for excessive
amounts of fertilizer or pesticide (it’s a
“weed” after all) and absorbs carbon
dioxide like any plant engaged in pho-
tosynthesis.
The fiber and fuel derived from
hemp would be carbon neutral and
as such wouldn’t contribute to global
warming—and in fact could help miti-
gate rising temperatures by replacing
chemical-intensive crops like cotton and
imported fossil fuels like oil and gas.
Of course, one might argue that the
best thing for the environment would
be to stop growing cannabis altogether.
“But let’s be real: That’s never going to
happen,” said Gloudeman. “In light of
that, the next best bet is to make it legal.”
CONTACTS: Change.org, www.
change.org; Drug Policy Alliance, www.
drugpolicy.org.
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