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It's primarily about how federal agencies are going to deal with the issue of water and power use for marijuana cultivation in WA and CO, the two states that have legalized MJ. But there is an interesting side issue, namely the carbon footprint of MJ cultivation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacoma News Trib
The manufacture of one joint – a marijuana cigarette – will produce 1.5 kilograms of CO2 emissions, equal to the emissions of a 44-mpg hybrid car driving 22 miles. The energy used is equal to that used to produce 18 pints of beer.
U.S. electricity use for cannabis production is the equivalent of 1.7 million average homes, or the production of seven average U.S. power plants.
If mj cultivation has this kind of massive carbon footprint, do we need to rethink? Nip it in the bud when it comes to pot legalization? If there is a conflict between pot legalization and anthropogenic global warming (AGW) which is most important?
]Read more here: Power and water: Will feds allow it for pot? | Business | The News Tribune
The ruling makes clear that the Obama administration is willing to set limits on the states’ legalization experiments, even though the Justice Department said in August that it would not block their plans to tax and sell the drug.
The agency began informing members of Congress of its decision at 11 a.m. today.
DuBray said the federal agency will conduct its operations “in a manner that is consistent with the Controlled Substances Act,” which bans marijuana.
And if the agency becomes aware of any federally-controlled water being used on marijuana crops, it will refer cases to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, he said.
Get rid of the ethanol mandate and farmers would start growing a crop that consumers actually wanted.
Oh then there is the NSA data center in utah that uses over 1.7 million gallons of water per day. The guv could shut that down and only a handful of paranoid control freaks would give a damn.
umm pretty sure marijuana is a weed and grows pretty much everywhere if we use or Remember B.C., Western Washington and PNW Bud Grown Hydro-power and we have lots of eater in fact ewe are flooding in some regions right now so why waste all that electricity and excess freshwater when pot could be grown and sold and taxed and build so infrastructure
Naw, go ahead and keep it legal. I've never met a stoned person yet that stresses about global warming. I think everyone who stresses about global warming should take up pot smoking (or eating marijuana brownies, if you're concerned about the ill effects on your lungs) immediately. Life would be fun again.
Non AGW denier, but LEGALIZE IT because it will have no effect on the planet.... Mary Jane is a plant...If grown outdoors it consumes CO2 like any other plant...When used it releases the CO2 it consumed, so adds no new CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and what water used to grow it returns to the earth's water cycle.
You do realize that Marijuana being illegal is the single biggest reason as to why it is so carbon intensive. To spell it out all that energy use is due to the fact that marijuana is done primarily in indoor grows for obvious reasons. Namely you cannot just plant a field of marijuana like you would do with tobacco. The reason for this is because that would be obvious to law enforcement. As such grows are forced indoors where sunlight has to be simulated and creating fake sunlight requires an enormous amount of energy, energy that would not be used if you could utilize, well, real sunlight.
As such your poll is nonsensical. Making pot illegal is why it has such a high carbon cost. Were it legal to grow like most cash crops the cost benefits of outdoor growing would drastically reduce the viability of indoor growing and thus greatly reduce the carbon inputs in growing.
Serious though, don't let common sense get in the way of the tricky false choice dilemmas you want to present to the libruhls.
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