Death By a Million Cuts–Marijuana Farms Damage the Environment Says Gallegos

Two Rivers Tribune writer, Kristan Korns, did a excellent piece on the first symposium offered by the new institute affiliated with HSU. The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR) gathered together a variety of informed people to discuss cannabis in this area.  Below is a small excerpt but read the piece itself for a great deal more information.

Marijuana in Humboldt County has gone from small “mom and pop” hippie grows to industrial-scale operations, and the environmental effects are devastating said researchers at Humboldt State University’s Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR)…

District Attorney Paul Gallegos said, “The problem is we haven’t regulated it.”

He said the logging industry is highly regulated, with mandated buffer zones along watersheds, to prevent the type of environmental problems being caused by marijuana cultivation.

“Each individual grow may not be an environmental catastrophe,” Gallegos said. “But with enough of them out there, you’re starting to get a situation that’s like a million paper cuts.”

“It’s tough with it being legal in California but not legal federally. We talked to US Attorney Melina Haag and she sent a letter threatening to prosecute us for trying to regulate marijuana,” Gallegos said.