Pot smokers, environmentalists, and just plain humans: take notice.

A recent article in The Atlantic reveals highly toxic pesticides are being used on illegal pot farms in California, and the runoff is poisoning forests.

I’ll quote extensively from the article and then make comments:

“Secret growers are taking advantage of the state’s remote stretches of public land—and the environmental impact is severe.”

“…this past November, [California] residents voted ‘yes’ on Proposition 64, making California the fifth state to legalize recreational pot. Almost two-thirds of the country’s total legal harvest comes from the Golden State…” [poisoned pot shipped everywhere]

“The lethal poisons growers use to protect their crops and campsites from pests are annihilating wildlife, polluting pristine public lands, and maybe even turning up in your next bong hit.”

“…grow sites tested positive for carbofuran, a neurotoxic insecticide that is so nasty it has been banned in the U.S., Canada and the EU. Farmers in Kenya have used it to kill lions. Symptoms of exposure range from nausea and blurred vision to convulsions, spontaneous abortions, and death….”

“Some 50 different toxicants have turned up at grow sites… Growers use the poisons to keep rodents and other animals from eating the sugar-rich sprouting plants, from gnawing on irrigation tubing, and from invading their campsites in search of food. Acute rodenticides cause neurological damage and internal bleeding. Animals literally drown in their own blood or stumble around until they’re eaten themselves, passing the poison up the food chain to predators like owls and fishers.”

“’It’s a massive problem,’ says Craig Thompson, a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service. ‘People don’t tend to grasp the industrial scale of what’s going on. There are thousands of these sites in places the public thinks are pristine, with obscene amounts of chemicals at each one. Each one is a little environmental disaster’.”

“Gabriel [biologist] and Thompson fear the poisons could spread far beyond each grow site and contaminate the water supply of towns and cities far downstream. The toxicants can leach into the soil and linger for years. Using water monitors, Gabriel has already found organophosphates—nerve agents used to make insecticides and certain types of chemical weapons—several hundred meters downhill from grow sites.”