Posted on 10/21/2012 8:55:10 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
California's annual medical marijuana harvest is just about done, but this year brings a new revelation sweeping the nascent industry: The feel-good herb may not, in fact, be so good for the environment.
From golden Sierra foothills to forested coastal mountains, an explosion of pseudo-legal medical marijuana farms has dramatically changed the state's landscape over the past two years.
A rush to profit from patient demand for pot has resulted in irresponsible forest clearing, illegal stream diversions, and careless pesticide and fertilizer use that has polluted waterways and killed wildlife, state and local government officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It seems like private contractors could be hired to search for these fields.
With a proper reward system in place, hunting for pot plants could be a nice hobby for some individuals, and a lucrative business for small companies.
From Humboldt have fam and friends up there. It is a mess up there. Can’t go walking in the forest without getting shot at.
I owned property in N Calif from 1988 thru 2004. Good horse trails which dated back to the pioneers & the Gold Rush days were no longer usable because of the pot growers shooting at you.
The Tahoe National Forest is no longer a place where you can camp-hike- or ride. There are large grows there being run by cartels from Mexico and they have found it is easier to bring the workers & the seeds to the USA & do all their planting here.
They are so dangerous that many county sheriff’s in N Calif won’t go near them.
Horse riders are being told they cannot use certain trails because of ‘enviro damage’ from hoofprints, but these cartels are far more destructive.
The failure to control / eradicate these pot grows was another reason why I moved out of N Calif.
“Please explain why having drunks isn’t enough.”
Well that wasn’t the point you were trying to make, was it? You specifically tried to argue that taking the profit motive from thugs (i.e. legalization) would not affect their criminal mentality. Except we had a huge national experiment to determine that precise question called the 18th Amendment. Which, since you’re not a fan of history, was repealed (first of it’s kind) by the 21st Amendment.
You want to change the subject? I don’t blame you.
Don’t know don’t care if there is anything it can’t do. I know that too much money is spent to stop it so I’m willing to embrace it. In Nebraska they planted hemp for habitat enhancement for pheasants beginning of the 20th century. Nothing like watching a cock ring neck fly up and grab a dead hemp stock take it down and feast.
'Scuse me, but since their IS NO Constitutional authority for the federal government to regulate or prohibit 'drugs' of any kind.....
it isn't the growers or consumers that are exhibiting a 'criminal mentality' here.
Unless, that is, you just don't care about the Constitution.
Because the environmentalists are the ones smoking the dope.
They have been promoting communism for years too.
And that right there is exactly why I believe MJ should legalized.
As a former Sheriff Explore, we regularly cut down these farms.
But, not before the aea was cleared of chems, feces, food waste. Those places are disgusting and your garbage can is cleaner.
Importantly, our safety was of the utmost concern and DEA, FBI and local LEO would remove all kinds of booby traps from razors and fishing hooks attached to eye level branches, which would take out an eye, even shotshell and home made claymores.
Now I don’t smoke the stuff but , I know so many who do and they function just fine. They don’t puff all day and use it recreationally while being very productive.
Legalize the stuff and you wil also find a cleaner product that is safer and a forest that is safer to hike in.
“Now I don’t smoke the stuff but” I just don’t believe that part when anyone says that. It’s like going to the doctor about an STD and saying ‘some friend of mine has this problem..’. Uh huh.
How are they managing to clear forest for this, and not have it stick out like a sore thumb from the air?
Yeah nOOb and the three most overated things in the world are:
Home cooking
Home cleaning
And You....
The de facto legalization has not removed the crime or the criminals from the industry.
And Len, it was you that brought up the 21st. not me. To the best of my knowledge it has nothing to do with pot.
But since you brought up the 21st. The people who violated the law on a large scale then also ran prostitution and gambling enterprises and were willing to murder to further their business. They had that criminal mentality.
The 21st was submitted to the country for approval something the so-called “medical” pot growers seem unwilling to do.
No, thank you, I neither need nor want to have someone with a pot fried brain in the car in front of me anymore than some brain dead drunk who can't function.
And the notion that legalization would take the profit out of pot is silly. The greatest effect would be for large growers to take control who could meet government regulations.
Zactly
Then I must assume you don't consider it constitutional for the feds to regulate which, if any, drugs cross the borders. And if not drugs why tobacco and booze? Or beef for that matter?
There is no such thing as legal for “all practical matters”. In law, something is either legal or it is illegal. There is also no such thing as 200% of the population.
You’re saying at one point that prohibition has no correlation to pot and then make the exact point that legal growers would be able to make a profit in precisely the same manner that alcohol producers make their profit, by meeting government regulations. And without guns and ammunition.
It’s almost like you don’t want to actually think about the issue as much as spout banalities.
Nice dodge in changing the subject. A tactic which I notice you attempted to earlier with another Freeper.
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And no, it is NOT Constitutional for the feds to regulate anything that crosses the border. They have only a concurrent jurisdiction with the state to collect taxes at the points of entry.
Everything else is under the purview of the States as per the 10th Amendment.
[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.
Samuel Adams (under the pseudonym "Candidus") in the Boston Gazette, 1772
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Since you feel free to engage in the game of 'assumption' I'll play along and assume from your reply that indeed you do not care about the Constitution.
De facto legalization is not the same as real legalization.
The de facto legalization in CA is that users aren't mercilessly prosecuted. But, prosecuting them is a lot like prosecuting well-intentioned gun-owners for minor technical violations. The big action, and the big money, is with the criminal growers. Real legalization would make that go away. Why would someone take over part of a National Forest to grow weed, threatening any hiker who stumbled on the field, if it were legal to grow on a farm?
So if you think pot ought to be legalized, so beit but there is no reason to suppose that the the so-called benefits would result.
As for not thinking about the issue...well, over the years I've seen a general lowering of the mores of the society around me and the relaxation of the restraints against many kinds of behavior that were once taken as unthinkable.
Society has not been bettered by hedonism tarted up as freedom.
I have freedoms too. One of which is being able to use the parks without fear of being shot by some grower protecting his patch.
The War on Drugs has been mishandled as most government programs are but that is not an argument in favor of making drugs legal. Legalization would be just as badly mishandled and the results just as disappointing.
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