The Marijuana Environment is Hazardous to Human Health
All creatures great and small are being poisoned by the pesticides and rodenticides in the water they drink, and in the food they eat. This polluted water from the northern California marijuana environment eventually flows to much of the State. The lawless pot industry is nothing less than purveyors of poison.
The recent scientific study “Cultivating Disaster: The Effect of Cannabis Cultivation on the Environment of Calaveras County,” points out that the cultivation of the drug was allowed by the State of California without adequate understanding of the impact on the environment and public health, welfare and safety. The chemicals that flow from the grow sites to the watershed had never been approved for these crops. Continue reading POT KILLS: WHAT’S ON YOUR POT? WHAT’S IN YOUR WATER?→
A neighbor’s marijuana prompts this person to warn our readers. A number of our readers share their testimonies about the impact of marijuana on quality of life. This blog about a neighbor is our third testimony about the marijuana lifestyle and how it affects others. Read My Hopes for a Peaceful Retirement and Living the Pot Lifestyle.
I live right next door to a marijuana grow and even though the county has a law banning the grow of marijuana for any reason, law enforcement won’t enforce it for several reasons. Money/lack of resources isn’t one of them.I cannot allow my grandchildren to come over anymore. I’ve reported the issue to the irrigation district, the sheriff and the Board of Supervisors.
It’s been almost two months and nothing has been done. The plants are at least two feet above the 10-foot fence they installed that we share. I am literally 30 feet away from the outside plants. Because there’s a loud electrical buzzing, there’s probably an indoor grow as well.
Law Enforcement’s Hands are Tied
Here’s what law enforcement wrote back to me about my neighbor’s marijuana:
“It’s not about money…We can’t get the Feds to prosecute because the Obama Administration has told the US Attorneys not to prosecute MJ cases. No local prosecution because of Prop 215 and our Attorney General who has added mud to water over prosecution. Yes, the Board of Supervisors has taken a position based upon land use, not criminality and that is handled administratively through the county. What you describe is not a land use issue. Bottom line, we’re quickly getting out of the eradication business and we’ll see what happens with Proposition 64 on November the 8th.”
Because no one is enforcing the law, marijuana grows are allowed to continue unchecked.
Pesticide Risks from a Neighbor’s Marijuana
Once people look deeper, they discover a great deal of problems with legalization of marijuana. (even before legalization) Know more = Vote No!
It exposes those living around them to toxic chemicals including pesticides linked to autism and other serious irreversible neurological damage. Common pesticides used on marijuana are Avid, Phosmat, Diazinon, Organophosphate –pesticides which were used to make Agent Orange during Vietnam.
Pesticide drift is a serious problem, even when pesticides are used responsibly. We all know the goal of marijuana growers is not the responsible use of pesticides. Pesticides can drift for miles in residential areas. I have watched my organic tomatoes die and my potted flowers wither. I can smell the chemicals from the grow and the fumes come through my air conditioner. I’m very concerned that my entire yard and my house could be contaminated with pesticides that cause nerve damage.
Think about what your neighbor can get away with if this is legal in the entire state. The only way to stop your neighbor’s marijuana is to Vote No on 64.
A reader shared with us two letters on Prop. 64, the Adult Legalization of Marijuana Act sent to the Los Angeles Times. She said, “It isn’t yet a legal substance, yet I realize that I have constantly smelled very strong marijuana fumes in my yard for about the last month.” Those who remember the smog Los Angeles suffered from in the past cannot believe that the state is willing to embrace a return to such a major environmental disaster again.
Patricia Jackson writes: “Here is what I submitted in reaction to a story ‘Tough New Climate Limits’ which ran on Friday, September 9, 2016:
I question whether these new tough climate laws will achieve their full potential if marijuana is legalized. I already find myself closing my car windows and running my air conditioning substantially more often than in prior years because of the overpowering smell of marijuana. People who smoke pot in their cars seem to almost always open their windows for some reason.
Both my front and back yard are constantly filled with the smell of marijuana both in the earliest morning when I walk out to pick out my copy of my just-delivered LA Times as well as into the evening when I go out into my backyard. On a recent 3-day weekend while painting high up on a ladder I had to wear a respirator mask at all times because the wind carried the at times chokingly-powerful smell of marijuana from someone near by who was on a morning-to-night marijuana bender.
Once people look deeper, they discover a great deal of problems with legalization of marijuana. Know more = Vote No!
One of your first stories on the legalization of marijuana featured a marijuana distributor standing in a state park. I thought the point of state and national parks was to create a nature experience. The legalization of marijuana will rob many people of the right to clean air and will disproportionately affect people living in apartments and people who cannot speak up for themselves for a variety of reasons. I’d like to know who is liable if I am overcome by fumes and sustain an injury. Unlike all the other places where marijuana has been legalized, Los Angeles has often record-low amounts of rain to clear the air, a host of dying mature trees and air that already contains a high amount of particulate matter.
It baffles me that the legalization of marijuana is even being considered in a way that gives a free hand to marijuana smokers about where they smoke. I’d also like to see a story about how often childrens’ sports teams in public parks (soccer, basketball, swimming, etc) experience marijuana fumes during their workouts. My experience was that every time I picked up my children from the park I smelled strong marijuana fumes.Please, please take the time to make clear that by legalizing marijuana we are abdicating our right to clean air.
The second letter is to Robin Abcarian, who is writing a series on marijuana legalization
I have been reading your series on the presumed legalization of marijuana and am baffled at the lack of discussion of the effect on clean air. There are no restrictions on where marijuana may be used, the restrictions are on where it is sold. I can tell you from overwhelming personal experience that the powerful effects of the wind in dispersing marijuana fumes from the most powerful brands of pot are not being considered at all. This means that pot may not be consumed physically next to school but in areas adjoining and the smell wafts over to the school. Or, what happened to me: I discovered while high up on a ladder to paint that marijuana odors travel at different rates on the wind. The fumes were far more powerful up high than they were at ground level.
The unrestricted ability to smoke some of the really potent, smelly marijuana means that the so-called selling point protections are meaningless because they fail to take into account how children and vulnerable adults could be impacted by powerful marijuana fumes. I am also interested in knowing what protections exist for people who are neighbors of heavy users and/or who live in apartments.
I currently smell marijuana when I step out into my yard around 6-7am and into the evening. I have completely lost the ability to know with any degree of certainty that I will be able to breathe in and get clean, un-marijuana-soiled air. I voted for legalization the last time, but I most certainly won’t this time because my experience has been that fumes from the types of brands of marijuana now available substantially reduce my quality of life in reducing my guaranteed access to un-marijuana-laced air.
I recently noticed just how polluted the air outside and in my home had become when I went to a dental office and was astounded at how refreshingly odor-free the air was. The dentist’s office was always a place previously where I was acutely aware of odors. Recent land-mark California clean air legislation could be completely undermined by the additional need for air conditioners, fans, and other technologies to block the smell of marijuana.If the marijuana industry is so profitable, they should be setting up and publicizing odor-free zones instead of sending people to side streets to smoke their pot (and yes, my street has filled that function for pot dispensaries). If you are dispensing it, people should be using the really smelly stuff somewhere where not everyone else is forced to participate.
Wildfire rages out of control. Did pot smoking growers start this fire?
Illegal Pot Growers Claim to be Hikers When Rescued in Big Sur
It may not be making the national news, but on local TV news in California, we learn that firemen discovered illegal pot growers amongst those individuals they rescued from the fiery inferno. See KSBW News report “Hikers” Rescued from Soberanes Fire were Illegal Pot Growers. Officials suspect as many as eleven rescued people were actually involved in a 900 plant marijuana farm. The marijuana growers culpability in starting the fire at this point is unknown, and subject to further investigation.
The fire is raging out of control and fire authorities expect it to burn all through the month of August. Five thousand fireman are working the blaze, which has consumed over 57 homes and more than 33,000 acres. It is now spreading into the Los Padres National Forest according to The Mercury News.
Careless smokers are often the start of such forest fires. If these growers were smoking their product or burning their trash, they very well could have started the fire.
This fire is just one of the many examples of the carelessness of our politicians who are pushing to turn this illicit drug into a big industry. The legalizers often use the argument that legal weed will end illegal activities surrounding the drug. We know from stories out of Colorado, Washington and Oregon that legal marijuana attracts more illegal activity. Each of these states is seeing an increase in illegal drug activities, both growing and sales. Here is a recent example of an illegal grow operation in Oregon in the Statesman Journal.
Illegal growers destroy the forest floor and tribal lands to plant their ‘crops’, they use toxic chemicals, poison animals and leave unbelievable piles of trash. NBC Bay Area news investigated the environmental damage. The Pacific Fisher is a mammal at risk for extinction, and in this news report 6 of the remaining 300 in Northern California have died, and 86% of those researchers have tested, are found to be exposed to the illegal rat poison used on this marijuana. Just think of what this potent poison could do to the human health of those who smoke this illegally grown drug.
Watch the Video on Environmental Impact of Illegal Marijuana Grows
It is also increasing fire hazards, such as the hash oil explosions. The most recent case was in Nederland, Colorado, and took place in a rented house with an absentee landlord. See the TV news report from a Denver station: Hash Oil Explosion Causes Large House Fire. If wind conditions were favorable, the report says a wildfire could have easily erupted, causing more property loss and forest fire. See Parents Opposed to Pot series of articles on Hash Oil Explosions to learn more about this negative consequence of legalizing marijuana.
