If only there was some way to eliminate the need for people to grow that stuff illegally on public land and make sure marijuana cultivation was subject to the same environmental oversight as any other crop.
What a load of beau locks. So wild animals have not been exposed to the hemp which is endemic to the americas until modern drug users have subjected them to it?
I wished I had some cannabis to share with my flemish giant doe during her last year. Elderly rabbits often suffer from constant, crippling back pain - and react poorly to most pain relief medication.
This is just lazy rhetoric. How is this person in charge of anything?
I guess since someone already thought of the children, rabbits were next in line.
Ha! You said it… living in Humboldt County California over here and it’s getting harder and harder to watch our neighbors to the east and north making all that money, eliminating the criminal element, and fixing the environmental concerns that come with large scale illegal outdoor grows without being very jealous. Common sense is supposed to come to California soon, but it’s not soon enough!
Fairbanks wasn’t mentioned as being “in charge of anything”. Neither Xeni Jardin, nor Christopher Ingraham mention him as being in charge of the eradication team in Utah, the DEA.
It’s unfortunate though, as Brainspore noted above, that Ingraham focuses on the rabbits instead of the “alternative” which might actually curb " the environmental impact of these [illegal] grows". Perhaps all parties involved in this news story are guilty of “lazy rhetoric”.
That Indian Hemp ditchweed that’s growing all over Kansas isn’t native to North America; it was brought here to make rope and cloth with. But while it was primarily bred for fiber content rather than THC, in some areas it definitely had enough THC concentration for the local wildlife (hippies in Lawrence) to graze on lots of it when they could find it.
Bunnies lose their fear of humans in many places where they live around humans in relative safety and with abundant food. This is normal behavior and is not necessarily related to any consumption of weed.
I really like the photos of the bunnies smoking joints.
My uncle was growing a patch in some unused grazing land that had been fenced off. My grandfather let the cattle in there and they grazed the shit out of that weed. You know what weed does to cattle? Nothing that can be discerned by a human being, that’s for sure.
“I deal in facts. I deal in science,” said special agent Matt Fairbanks
“And I don’t give a flying fuck if they are relevant to the matter at hand!” he continued.
Sure, and his problem-solving skills are so acute that prohibiting the use of herb = “science”
Rabbits have many times the number of tastebuds compared to humans, so when they like the taste of something, they really, really like it. My rabbits used to have flavor-orgasms over cilantro. I don’t know if it got them stoned, but they could have scarcely enjoyed the stuff more if it did.
I wish I’d known that one, back when I had rabbits. The one thing mine consistently like was cords - electrical cords were a bit more chewy, but telephone cords were perfectly bite-sized.
This sounds to me like a reasonable issue to be raised, considered, and dealt with, as one part of developing a sensible, comprehensive marijuana policy. Obviously it’s no reason to continue banning the stuff, but making sure that legal grow ops know to (and know how to) keep wildlife out of their fields seems like good sense. Animals that are too stoned to run from predators are very likely to be dead animals, and while there’s hardly any shortage of rabbits, there may be endangered species that would like to snack on those leaves, and should be taken into account.
Of course, it’s easier and more fun to just call for the dude’s crucifixion and then forget all about it.
I’m pretty sure a legal grow op will be just as omnicidal to its herbivorous pests as any other agricultural business. It plain good business sense to protect the product from animals that want to eat it.
What I’m more concerned about is the fact that banks and financial institutions aren’t giving legal pot businesses a fighting chance. It’s insane the amount of cash Seattle’s legal pot businesses have to move around in the clear and stockpile. Even without services like Brinks, because of the Federal liabilities even physically moving weed money around entails.
These places can’t even process debit and credit cards.
The issue I have with this DEA agent isn’t that he’s bringing up stoned animals and other environmental impacts of illegal grow sites, it’s that he’s using those things as arguments for keeping marijuana illegal—which is the only reason those kinds of grow sites exist in the first place. That kind of cluelessness deserves any ridicule we can hurl at it.
That’s the biggest crock of nothing I ever heard. Animals can’t get high on the pot plant by eating raw weed. Just like we can’t. It has to be boiled in butter or by some other means of converting the THC into a form that will allow it to pass through the stomach lining into the bloodstream. Simply eating raw pot is not going to do anything but hurt when those stems come out the other end. Utahs DEA task force is dumb as a crack head applying for Yale University. It’s obvious these so called educated cops slept through pot chem 101. Their either that stupid or hoping the lawmakers their preaching to are!!!
