Chemicals and Marijuana
There are two key health and environmental impacts of marijuana production:
1. Impact on the Environment – Land and water is being polluted by the often illegal and over use of chemicals notably nitrates. This is of direct concern to Calaveras County. We do not want to permit further contamination of our county by cannabis cultivation.
2. Agriculture Chemicals and the Pot Consumer – Another little considered impact of chemicals in production, is their impact on the product that pot users ultimately consume. There is no required testing of cannabis, sold to the public, by Federal Agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration.
The public’s health is not protected.
The Huffington Post recently noted:
Many of the chemicals applied to pot plants are intended only for lawns and other non-edibles. Medical cannabis samples collected in Los Angeles have been found to contain pesticide residues at levels 1600 times the legal digestible amount. Because the product is generally inhaled rather than eaten, any toxins it carries have an even more direct route into the lungs and blood stream. Raber noted the situation is all the more concerning for patients smoking medical cannabis, whose health problems could make them more vulnerable to the risks pesticide exposure brings — especially if they suffer from a liver disease. While this paper focuses on the first impact – the environment, we believe that policy makers should also be looking more carefully at the impact chemicals in marijuana production have on the long-term health of the consumer.
We hope that this paper Cultivating Disaster will bring to the attention of policy makers, the public and the media the necessity of ending the environmental destruction caused by cannabis/marijuana cultivation on the health and welfare of the people of Calaveras County but also the region and the nation.
From “Cultivating Disaster, the Effects of Cannabis Cultivation”:
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/2846f186-63c4-40b0-b1d8-d22bbfc82a5e/downloads/1bso9m9m0_670187.pdf