This article was originally published on The Bluntness, and appears here with permission.
Between Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota and New Jersey – all states who have expanded medical and/or adult-use cannabis legalization statewide – there are over 143 million acres of agricultural land for over 20 million Americans.
But what about the cannabis environmental impact?
The economic possibilities may have investors and entrepreneurs and seeing green, but as climate disasters ravage the United States with floods, fires and storms, one must not forget the impact cannabis mass cultivation can have on local ecology.
The connotation that marijuana is grown by hippies up in the mountains with only the most holistic, organic practices is a far cry from a multibillion dollar industry that packages everything in child-proof plastic while competing against a robust black market where cultivation, manufacturing and testing standards can be circumvented.