With state-sanctioned cannabizness going into overdrive in the US and pressure mounting to decriminalise in the UK and elsewhere, marijuana is not the demon pariah it once was (hello again, this). But the really important weed debate isn’t about legalisation any more – it’s about sustainability
We’ve been in here for approximately two minutes and we’re already high. Nope, we’re not in an Amsterdam coffee shop. And no, we’re not at that mate-who-loves-to-skin-up’s house, either. We’re in a potting shed – aptly named – in Devon, South-West England, admiring a decent array of healthy-looking cannabis plants that are in different stages of growth. It stinks in here. It’s illegal too. However, none of that matters, because we’re actually here to chat to the owner of this crop – a 50-year-old woman with years of experience in marijuana production – about how she manages to raise such impressive plants while also using sustainable practices and trying to help the environment.
An often-overlooked fact when it comes to cannabis cultivation is that it can take its toll on resources and, thus, the environment. Want to keep your crop indoors, away from prying eyes and the unpredictability of the weather? Well, get a load of lights and prepare to use an immense amount of electricity. Want to protect your crop from bugs? Sure thing, just buy-up some pesticides – which we all know are great for the environment. Then there’s the soil. And the water. And the compost. Basically, it’s simple: lots of people in the UK want cannabis to be legalised – and if that happens, growing it would be lawful, as well as smoking it. But if people start growing the herb without first being educated in the ways of sustainability, we could be in for an environmental headache.
It’s happening right now in a few states in the US. There are, in fact, cries on the other side of the pond against big companies who are capitalising on legalised cannabis growing, and are in turn sucking resources and damaging the environment. This could result in a massive cost to the taxpayer. Some people are now saying that the UK should learn from these bad examples and get sustainable practices in place before the big grow is finally legalised. So, we’re in Devon, to help get the message out.
Illustration by Irene Palacio (Figures from Mother Jones)
Growing pains
We want to learn about sustainable practices firsthand from Mary Jane (we doubt this is her real name), who is convinced that sustainable growing techniques won’t just help the environment and reduce waste, but will also help your bank balance, too, by cutting your energy usage so you don’t spend a fortune on your electricity bills. The former residential care manager has been growing pot for more than half a decade in the UK and Spain. She has a history of chronic illnesses and, according to her, cannabis has been a lifeline in a very real sense. Growing it is the best way to make sure she’s always stocked-up on painkillers.
But Mary is also a self-identified environmentalist and tries to employ the most sustainable processes during cultivation. “I do not grow for cash or to save money,” she says, as we examine her plants in this sticky, icky potting shed. “I grow to be able to access the strains which I need to treat my symptoms and to avoid having to deal with dealers and organised crime. I find growing very therapeutic, it’s a major part of my healing process. But I do try to reduce the environmental impact and to produce a totally organic product. It’s important.”
“When you use the sun, you’re saving electricity and creating a better crop. When I smoke my grow, I can literally taste the sunshine” – ‘Mary’
Mary says that techniques she employs include collecting her own rainwater, recycling her compost, introducing special bugs that fight pests without damaging crops, using natural sunlight as much as possible, and avoiding peat-based chemicals. She explains the far-reaching impact of growing sustainably – and the potential damage of not doing so:
“Making an effort towards sustainability is important in all aspects of horticulture to ensure that the process can be repeated often, without having a long-term negative environmental impact. Things like an increase in demand for electricity or soil substrates could have a negative knock-on environmental impact. Also, as large crops are grown, an increased use of mineral nutrients and chemical pesticides could mean that it becomes harder to maintain the crops by organic means. But cannabis is easy to grow.”
“It’s called weed for a good reason,” she continues. “And growing sustainably is a challenge – but it’s a challenge worth undertaking, for your environment, for the country, for the world. Yes, it can be more expensive at first, because if you’re growing indoors, it’s carbon-intensive and, as such, not sustainable unless the electricity is generated by cleaner methods. But it’s worth it.”
Mary only keeps her seedlings indoors. As soon as they are robust enough, she takes them out to the potting sheds – one for vegetating plants and the other for flowering plants. Outside, she tries to give her babies as much sunlight as possible so they can contain a “better spectrum of cannabinoids” – ie, the “good stuff”. “When you use the sun,” she says, “you’re saving tons of electricity and creating a better crop. When I smoke my grow, I can literally taste the sunshine.”
Mary’s dedication to sustainable practices is fascinating. She tells us she uses a 1.5-metre-squared apex tent and energy-saving CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps). Also, she says that ivy and branches are allowed to grow over the sheds to minimise any heat loss. She uses natural sprays, which contain ingredients from lavenders and alfalfas, as well as products from places like Dragonfly Earth Medicine (“Creating alchemy from nature”, says the Dragonfly website). The nutrients, which come in mason jars, are used to make compost ‘teas’, which help both the vegetative and flowering stages, and can be used in hydro systems, which utilise nutrients that have been dissolved in water as opposed to using any soil. Mary also uses a hearty mix of molasses and microorganisms in her homemade ‘bokashi’ compost (a Japanese system that ferments waste), the ultimate in sustainable gardening.
CFLs helping an indoor-grow setup (Photo: YouTube)
Mary says she’s learning from the Dragonfly Earth Medicine team in the US, among others. “I try to glean as much advanced knowledge on sustainability and growing organically as I can from the experts. I can then pass on all my knowledge to other people in the UK. Doing this now, as a community of growers, means that when we’re legally allowed to grow – presumably pretty soon – we don’t have to start from scratch over here. We’ll be ready to grow sustainably. We’ll be skipping 20 years of learning and going straight to the end-game.”
There are plants in Mary’s separate vegging and flowering sheds at the moment. Both are wooden, but the flowering one is insulated and lined with reflective plastic sheeting. There’s one energy-reducing HPS (high-pressure sodium) light with parabolic reflectors for every two plants here. Mary can’t afford LED lights, but notes that “LEDs can reduce yield by a third, so you’d have to run an extra light to get the same yield, which is not necessarily more sustainable.”
“Legalising pot is only worth it if the world isn’t damaged as a result” – ‘Mary’
When you open the door to the shed, there’s a thick black blind. As soon as you push that aside, it absolutely stinks. “I don’t grow commercially,” Mary tells us, “but I used to have a bedroom filled with plants. But then I needed house space and got nervous. I don’t want loads of weed lying around. The police aren’t a worry – but I am worried about someone coming over and stealing my meds and beating me up. When cannabis is legalised, we need not fear criminals any more.”
As we admire Mary’s plants, we’re impressed by the pride she takes in her devotion to sustainable growing. She turns to us. “Yes, this is illegal in the UK at the moment,” she says, solemnly. “But it won’t be this way for long. The UK will soon follow the US states of Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska – not to mention Washington DC – in legalising both the use of marijuana and its cultivation. And then wait for the big businesses to come in, just like they’ve done in parts of California, where cannabis is legal for medical use only. That’s when resources are wasted, the environment is damaged and sustainable practices go out the window. It’s up to people like me, right now, to get the message out: treat your grow like any other crop. Doesn’t matter whether you’re growing one plant or one thousand. Live sustainably and care for the environment, otherwise, we’re all in trouble. Legalising pot is only worth it if the world isn’t damaged as a result.”
Weed from the wilds
We leave Mary’s shed with fire in our bellies, or maybe it’s a hint of the munchies. However, we also want to find out if others are as passionate about the sustainable growing message as Mary. Thankfully, it turns out she’s not on her own. ‘Don’, a 27-year-old engineer, also from South-West England, confesses to “falling in love” with cannabis when he was a young lad. Now, he grows plants out in “the wilds” – something he’s been doing for the past decade. “I’ve only ever been interested in growing cannabis for myself and my friends, for medical and recreational reasons,” he says. “I’ve never seen it as something to profit from, so cash isn’t something I think of when I plant out. I get the satisfaction of helping people from growing, and sharing my medicine in a completely non-profit and caring way.”
“Legalised or not, I’ll still continue to overgrow the system with a plant that brings me and others relief, and I’ll educate others about cannabis and sustainable growing. Your outdated nonsense will be defeated eventually” – ‘Don’
Don employs a few sustainable techniques. “Firstly, I make my own ‘grow’ fertiliser tea from the weeds, and from my lawn cuttings at home. This makes costs cheaper and also it’s using a byproduct that I’d only compost down to spread on the borders in my garden.
“Secondly, when I select a wild spot to guerrilla grow, I’ll use this place and soil for at least two years in a row. Once I’ve pulled a plant, I return to the spot with manure to re-fertilise the ground. This allows the soil and compost to recover from supporting plant life. In that period, I will top up the shop-bought compost with my home-composted soil. This reduces the amount of compost I buy and, again, reduces costs and my carbon footprint. Thirdly, I use the entire plant. Stalks are broken down to a fibre and felted [a delicate process that produces a versatile new hemp material]. Leaves are frozen throughout the grow to make full plant oil at the end. Larger, more favourable flowers are dried and cured for use, while small popcorn buds are frozen for oil and hash. This ensures minimal wastage.”
Popcorn buds (Photo: Flickr/Mark)
We must be “more sustainable in everything we do to continue living comfortably on this ship we call Earth,” Don tells us. “This is why I try to make my impact as minimal as I can for my situation. If growing cannabis was legalised, I believe we should all strive to be as sustainable as possible. Not only would it ensure the longevity of our plants, it would also project a friendly image of the cannabis community.”
And how can that community help? “To be more sustainable,” Don says, “you must think about where you source things like fertilisers and compost, and whether you collect it or have it delivered, and whether to buy or make your own products, if this is possible. They should also think about how they use the plant once harvested. Are they being efficient? When growing in the wild, try to make your grow sites within walking distance, if possible. This’ll reduce the carbon impact on the planet.”
Don’s message to the UK government is just as stark and uncompromising: “Legalised or not, I’ll still continue to overgrow the system with a plant that brings me and others relief – and I’ll continue to educate others about cannabis and sustainable growing practices.” He adds: “Your outdated nonsense will be defeated eventually.”
(Photo: Flickr/Don Goofy)
Another grower who’s dedicated to sustainable practices is 37-year-old ‘Walter’, an entrepreneur and director from London who has ADHD and has been growing cannabis for seven years for medical reasons. He says: “I outdoor-grow when I can, use cut-offs as manure and recycle the soil. I use organic products, my own cuttings and rainwater where possible. Doing this makes it cheaper, kinder to the environment and healthier for me.”
Walter says that if growing weed in the UK is legalised, then sustainability will be “very important”. He explains: “The increased chemical runoff – that is, the extra chemicals that would seep into the ground and into streams from grows – could be unwelcome, and then there’s the waste of electricity. For any substance to be consumed, it should be grown to the highest standards, with no shortcuts. If growing is legalised, then problems could include anything from black market operations to the theft of electrical power, so a clear and non-prohibitive self-cultivation policy will help. Education is key, as is undermining the black market. I would recommend that new growers who want to be sustainable should join a collective at their local ‘cannabis social club’, and take advice as to what numbers and quantities to grow; be choosy in what they feed their plants.”
Cannabis is classified as a Class B drug in the UK and it is illegal for residents to possess it “in any form”. It’s difficult to say with any degree of accuracy just how much is grown in the UK, but it was reported that, in the West Midlands area alone, upwards of 40,000 plants were destroyed by police in 2015. (It’s also worth noting that 40,000 is unlikely to have scratched the surface when it comes to how many plants are actually being grown in the area.)
Growth industry
Many people in the UK oppose the legalisation of cannabis and, equally, many campaign for it. Not everyone cares for sustainable practices, though. We speak to ‘Mr X’ (again, we’re guessing this might not be his real name), who has been growing in the UK for years and has made a healthy profit from his usually cellar-based plantations.
“It’s about putting food on the table, isn’t it?” he says. “As a single dad, I need to provide for my family and that means making money to keep them fed and clothed when there aren’t any jobs around. A small amount of people will care about organic stuff and using the sun but, to most of us, we make top quality gear by using what we have to hand, like lights, electricity and cheap compost. It’s not hard to grow and it’s not hard to sell. All that will happen when it’s legal here in the UK is that I’ll be legally allowed to do what I do now. It’s the same in America. Why would anyone decide to make less money by putting in more effort than you need?”
A medical marijuana outlet in Denver, Colorado (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Our conversation with Mr X leads us on to the US. This is, after all, an ever-evolving case study, as more US states look set to join the likes of Colorado and Washington as pot-legal areas, or to join the likes of California as pot-legal-only-for-medicinal-purposes states. A successful transition to normalised cannabis use in the United States means more pressure to follow suit in the UK and elsewhere.
But there is a raft of environmental impacts being recorded in the US as a result of cannabis legalisation, including rapacious resource consumption. In California, for example, according to figures reported by Mother Jones, during the state’s summertime growing season outdoor grows consume roughly 60 million gallons of water a day – in a state that is now in the fifth year of its worst drought in history. This sort of water loss is being seen by some as significantly more criminal than cultivating a narcotic product for medical or recreational purposes. And, to boot, this amount of water is also a whopping 50 per cent more than is used by all the residents in San Francisco over the same period of time – a single day.
However, worse still than the resource drain from outdoor grows are the problems that come from an estimated one-third of North America’s pot crop being grown indoors. An indoor module accommodating just four plants reportedly sucks as much electricity as 29 fridges. In California alone, it’s been reported that indoor marijuana grows account for around nine per cent of household electricity use. Some experts reckon that, for the United States as a whole, the amount of electricity used by indoor grows is enough to power 1.7 million homes.
It’s also been reported that for every pound of pot grown indoors, 4,600lb of CO2 goes into the atmosphere. That means, it’s been estimated, that the production and distribution of pot in the United State emits as much carbon as three million cars. Soil and water has been contaminated due to “leaks and improperly stored fuels” in parts of California. A few years back, engineers at Humboldt State University found that the average household in Humboldt County used 145 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month, but in contrast, an indoor residential marijuana grow at the centre of a prosecution case used nearly 70 times that, at almost 10,000 kilowatt-hours every month. That means tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere to supply the extra electricity needed for people getting high.
The impact of cannabis cultivation on Post Mountain, Northern California (Image: Google Maps)
And harmful impact in the UK could be similar if cannabis cultivation is legalised, albeit on a smaller scale. Derek Peterson, chairman and CEO of Terra Tech Corp – a California-based medical-marijuana-cultivating company with a keen eye on sustainable growing – says that one of the worst side effects of cannabis cultivation is the energy consumption, as well as the associated carbon footprint. “Powering 1,000-watt lights utilises a significant amount of energy and creates a significant amount of heat as a byproduct,” he says. “Additionally, energy needs to be consumed to power cooling to offset the heat.” Peterson says, though, that several technologies are now being used to offset the carbon footprint, such as increasing both LED and natural lighting.
When it comes to what the UK can learn from the US in terms of sustainable cannabis production, Peterson says that the “most important thing is understanding that quality isn’t sacrificed” by producing in the manner that Terra Corp claims to. “In fact, a positive byproduct of using less energy,” he says, “is producing a cheaper product, which helps a company’s margins. It truly is a win-win, environmentally and economically. Putting profit before our planet is a short-sighted approach.”
Gearing up for the mass market
So, the powerful professional pursuit of pot production has been established and is evolving quickly in the US. But campaigners for the legalisation of the drug in the UK are embracing the need for growers to learn sustainable practices now. Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (a pressure group that calls for drug policy reform in the UK and was instrumental in helping Uruguay implement a system of legal, regulated cannabis production in 2012), says: “The total amount of cannabis required for the UK market is actually quite small compared to most agricultural products, so the environmental impact need not be huge. The obvious way to do it most sustainably in energy terms is to grow it outside in sunlight, which is perfectly feasible. Some strains or growing techniques are not so effective outdoors – but plenty are, so outdoor growing using well-established sustainable farming techniques is entirely possible.”
He continues: “If cannabis is being grown with lights, then the obvious answer is to use renewable sources of power: solar, wind, geothermal or hydro. There may be environmental benefits from the expanded use of industrial cannabis, although this is a separate issue, really.” Rolles also says there are “some obvious specific environmental harms” related to illicit cultivation. These include: pollution with pesticides; growing indoors out of necessity; water misuse, and; growing on protected lands.
Campaigner Orson Boon, head of the London Cannabis Club (part of the UKCSC, a grassroots movement aiming to bring Spanish-style cannabis clubs – private, members-only clubs for cannabis consumers, protected under the Spanish Constitution – to the UK), puts it bluntly: “Look, cannabis is going to be legalised. People and businesses are going to legally grow it. We know it can waste resources and harm the environment when done irresponsibly. So, let’s educate our future growers now to be sustainable and use the sort of products that won’t wreck the environment. In fact, let’s make the government sew sustainable practices into the fabric of the policies that emerge as a result of the legalisation process. Get them thinking about it now. Let’s show the world that the UK won’t just grow cannabis – it’ll grow it responsibly.”
So, it seems there’s plenty we can be doing now to prepare for the day, which many now believe is coming sooner rather than later, when cannabis cultivation is legalised in the UK. We can use sustainable processes. We can care for the environment. We can reduce waste.
Among the lush foliage in her potting shed, Mary Jane is full of hope that it can be done the right way at scale. She tells us with pride: “It’s high time we treated the environment with love. I put a lot of love into my plants and I try to live sustainably. I care for cannabis. I care for the world around me. We should all do this so we can create a better world. A better world where we can all smoke pot and enjoy it, free of guilt.”
The post Weed: who cares if it’s legal – it’s how they grow it that matters appeared first on Collectively.