There\u2019s a harsh downside to the boom in marijuana legalization and use on the West Coast: Illegal growers are polluting the environment to an alarming degree\u00a0and threatening the health of people and rare wildlife in the process.<\/p>\n
Mourad Gabriel, an ecologist with the Integral Ecology Research Center in northwest California,\u00a0told Reuters the problem is much worse than researchers and officials previously thought. He estimates illegal marijuana sites on federal land in California\u2014where most of these pot-growing farms are found\u2014contain 731,000 pounds of solid fertilizer, 491,000 ounces of concentrated liquid fertilizer and 200,000 ounces of toxic pesticides. This waste is potent enough to harm law enforcement officials investigating the crops; contact with these toxic materials during raids or searches of illegal marijuana farms has sent at least five officials to the hospital for skin rashes and trouble breathing, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n
The waste also isn\u2019t being properly treated. Gabriel, who has visited about 100 of these locations, says that when state remediation officials come to clean up, they often don\u2019t do a thorough job, as many of the sites still contain as much as half the original waste.<\/p>\n
Several studies suggest waste from these marijuana operations can hurt rare animals. For example, research by Gabriel\u2019s team\u00a0found\u00a0that 10 percent of dead fishers, a weasel-like mammal found in California, were killed by rodenticide poisons that are often\u00a0stocked at marijuana farms to reduce mice populations. These toxic chemicals are scattered about the farms to prevent vermin from disturbing cannabis plants, but they end up accidentally poisoning other animals.\u00a0Some fishers were found with up to six poisons in their systems, suggesting that the scale of the contamination is quite serious.<\/p>\n