Schaefer Shares Her Thoughts on ‘The Green Movement’

‘The green movement’ or ‘the green rush’ has become a name for the increasing desire by many different states’ residents to legalize marijuana for medicinal and/or recreational use.

But it’s really more of a misnomer than anything else.

“Let’s vote green” was the rallying cry made by many lawmakers of the ND House just this year, when a bill concerning marijuana passed the House (House Bill 1420). This bill would change the North Dakota Century code concerning possession of marijuana and charges associated with it.

It passed the house, 56-38.

One representative, Rep. Bill Tveit from Hazen, made a striking comment. “...If it’s not good for teens, what makes it good and safe for adults?” The bill would limit legal marijuana to adults 21 and older, though some research suggests that carcinogens are also present in marijuana, just the same as they are present in tobacco.

So the green movement may not be as healthful as we were led to believe, where marijuana is concerned especially.

But is growing the drug, if and when it is made legal, ‘green’ meaning ‘good for the environment?’

The green movement suggests that growing plants is a healthy part of healing the environment, and indoor/ vertical farms as well as marijuana farms are capitalizing on that belief.

However good for the environment plants are, growing them indoors negates all that goodness.

And it might actually cause a regression in energy use, especially where marijuana is concerned.

A study by Colorado State University graduate student Hailey Summers, advisor Jason Quinn, and mechanical engineering research scientist Evan Sproul compiled a life cycle assessment of indoor pot operations across the United States. They also analyzed energy and materials required to grow the product, tallying ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ as they went. Those ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ concerned the electricity (for highintensity grow lights) used, natural gas consumption, and carbon dioxide for accelerated plant growth.

If emissions are really as bad as many today believe them to be, then the indoor pot industry is not even as ‘green’ as the Colorado coal mines.

Those coal mines produce 1.8 metric megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. And Colorado’s indoor marijuana industry alone produces 2.6 metric megatons, according to Summers’ study.

Summers, Quinn, and Sproul defined emissions per kilogram of cannabis flower and developed an online GIS map (interactive by nature) to find a local emissions estimate based on the location of a real indoor marijuana farm or a projected one. Their map can be viewed online at https:// www.arcgis.com/apps/ webappviewer/index.ht ml?id=f47100de3f6b46 bb9aebf8dc52d957bf&e xtent=-18880993.9285% 2C2754896.1724%2C8069740.6478%2C1009 2850.8878%2C102100.

The average of those emissions ranged between 2,283 and 5,184 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of dried flower. That’s only one kilogram of product to over two thousand kilograms of emissions, at the most kindly estimate.

By comparison, outdoor and greenhouse farms produce 22.7 and 326.6 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of marijuana product, says Summers in her paper.

Furthermore, Denver’s electricity consumption for the cannabis growing industry was only 1% of its total electricity consumption in 2013. By 2018, it had jumped to 4%.

Smoking marijuana recreationally or medically does not support ‘green’ practices, as Summers, Quinn, and Sproul showcased in their research project. Those secure indoor greenhouses that grow the marijuana are in no way supporting a lessened dependence on electricity, heating, and cooling or a decrease in ‘greenhouse gasses,’ which many believe to be harmful to the environment.

Additionally, legalization for the drug is based on a smokescreen of misinformation.

The director of Pot Luck: The Altered State of Colorado, Jane Wells, spent 18 months shooting the film. Previously, she had been pro-legalization. After learning the aftereffects of legalization on Colorado, she changed her mind, and she gave seven main reasons why to Politico’s CJ Burton.

1. Pot is dangerous because THC levels keep increasing. The FDA is not involved whatsoever in the regulated consumption of marijuana products because it is still illegal, according to the federal government. That’s a little concerning, or it should be for marijuana users. A featured individual in the film Pot Luck said this: “You think you’ve got this, because you’ve been smoking weed for 10 years, but the truth is, no one knows anything about weed.” It hasn’t been legal to study, and isn’t a traditional drug dispensed by pharmacy.

2. Unforeseen social and legal side effects are present, like home explosions, drugged driving (for which there is no legal on-the-spot test yet), and homelessness.

3. Crime increased overall, especially organized crime. This is the main component to many arguments to legalize marijuana, but the Colorado data shows that legalizing the drug does not make related crimes decrease.

4. Money coming into the state for the drug is not useful to support education and social organizations like it was promised. Wells states that Colorado made $1 million between 2013 and 2018 in marijuana revenue. The state has an education shortage of $1.6 million, to put it into perspective.

5. We’re hurting minorities. Wells says that white neighborhoods tend to band together and keep dispensaries out, but minority neighborhoods allow them in, to the detriment of the neighborhood’s health and state of crime.

6. The war on drugs… We’ve tossed in the towel and encouraged more addiction by making it legal to do drugs.

7. The cannabis industry has a lot of powerand it doesn’t like to be regulated.

As more petitions circulate, begging (and sometimes badgering) for your signature, remember that the marijuana industry may not be as ‘green’ as the supporters would like you to think. Consider too the consequences of legalization, similar to those that Colorado is experiencing now. That could be us in a few years, if it makes it past our lawmakers.

Don’t be afraid to say no, as the trend to fit in today tends to demand a ‘yes.’ Taking information from Wells and Colorado State research, there are potential scientific, social, and environmental reasons to not legalize recreational marijuana.