California's
marijuana harvest is vast—and getting vaster all the time. To meet demand,
researchers say, the acreage dedicated to marijuana grows in the Emerald
Triangle has doubled in the past five years. Like the Gold Rush of the
mid-1800s, this "green rush," as it is known locally, has brought great wealth
at a great cost to the environment.
Whether
grown in bunkers lit with pollution-spewing diesel generators, or doused with
restricted pesticides and sown on muddy, deforested slopes that choke off salmon
streams during the rainy season, this "pollution pot" isn't exactly high
quality, or even a quality high.
"The
cannabis industry right now is in sort of the same position that the meatpacking
industry was in before The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair," says
Stephen DeAngelo, the founder of Oakland's Harborside Health Center, a large
medical marijuana dispensary. "It simply isn't regulated, and the upshot is that
nobody really knows what's in their cannabis."
To
read more about the toll that California's pot grows take on plants and animals,
click here. [READ
MORE]
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