(To read about Jon's mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
|
Pot smokers beware: killer pesticides, poison
By Jon Rappoport
A recent article in The Atlantic reveals highly toxic
pesticides are being used on illegal pot farms in California, and the
runoff is poisoning forests.
I'll quote extensively from the article and then make comments:
"Secret growers are taking advantage of the state's remote stretches of public land---and the environmental impact is severe."
"...this past November, [California] residents voted 'yes' on
Proposition 64, making California the fifth state to legalize
recreational pot. Almost two-thirds of the country's total legal harvest
comes from the Golden State..." [poisoned pot shipped everywhere]
"The lethal poisons growers use to protect their crops and
campsites from pests are annihilating wildlife, polluting pristine
public lands, and maybe even turning up in your next bong hit."
"...grow sites tested positive for carbofuran, a neurotoxic
insecticide that is so nasty it has been banned in the U.S., Canada and
the EU. Farmers in Kenya have used it to kill lions. Symptoms of
exposure range from nausea and blurred vision to convulsions,
spontaneous abortions, and death...."
"Some 50 different toxicants have turned up at grow sites...
Growers use the poisons to keep rodents and other animals from eating
the sugar-rich sprouting plants, from gnawing on irrigation tubing, and
from invading their campsites in search of food. Acute rodenticides
cause neurological damage and internal bleeding. Animals literally drown
in their own blood or stumble around until they're eaten themselves,
passing the poison up the food chain to predators like owls and
fishers."
"'It's a massive problem,' says Craig Thompson, a wildlife
ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service. 'People don't tend to grasp the
industrial scale of what's going on. There are thousands of these sites
in places the public thinks are pristine, with obscene amounts of
chemicals at each one. Each one is a little environmental disaster'."
"Gabriel [biologist] and Thompson fear the poisons could
spread far beyond each grow site and contaminate the water supply of
towns and cities far downstream. The toxicants can leach into the soil
and linger for years. Using water monitors, Gabriel has already found
organophosphates---nerve agents used to make insecticides and certain
types of chemical weapons---several hundred meters downhill from grow
sites."
"'These guys aren't growing for the legal recreational market
or medical dispensaries---they're growing to exploit a black market
somewhere,' says Mark Higley, a wildlife biologist with the Hoopa Tribe
in Humboldt County, whose reservation has seen an explosion in illegal
grow sites. While there is no proof that illegal pot ends up in the
burgeoning legal market, many familiar with the industry suspect it
does."
"Law enforcement officials think many trespass grows are set
up [on government land] by Mexican drug cartels, which prefer to ship
marijuana from state to state rather than smuggle it over the
international border. Growers arrested during raids are often
undocumented immigrants in their 20s from Michoacan, experienced in
covert agriculture and hard living. They earn around $150 a day for
two-to-four months, much more than they would at a farm or winery."
"Captured growers sometimes claim their employers are holding
their families hostage until the harvest is collected. Whether or not
that's true, they're motivated to protect the crop. Hendrickson
estimates between a quarter and half of raids turn up some kind of
weapon, from crossbows to automatic rifles. He has found elevated sniper
positions set up near grow sites."
"Just walking through rows of plants coated with toxic
chemicals can be enough to bring on symptoms like lethargy and
headaches---let alone spending hours cutting them down in the hot sun
under the wash of a helicopter. Gabriel [biologist] and his employees
have started getting monthly blood tests to check for pesticide
exposure."
"Some chemical threats are more immediate. At one site
Gabriel was inspecting an unfamiliar container full of aluminum
phosphide, a poisonous powder used to kill rodents and insects. It had
gasified and built up pressure in the heat of the sun. When he touched
it, it exploded in his face. Luckily he was wearing a hazmat
respirator."
"'My biggest fear is that some kid will come across one of
those bottles," Thompson says. 'Carbofuran is pink, it looks like Pepto,
like candy. Can you imagine what a five-year-old would do with that?'"
----end of Atlantic excerpt---
So the contamination and the poison are in the land, in the water, in animals, and in the marijuana people smoke.
This is not the first time, in recent years, that pot has
been found to contain pesticides. A quick search will turn up a number
of articles. However, the level of toxicity here in these California pot
farms is extreme, to say the least.
Where are the growers buying their banned pesticides? Mexico? On the black market in the US?
How can pot smokers be sure they're smoking clean product?
For example, are legal dispensaries working with proper labs to test
many, many samples? In these tests, how many pesticide compounds are
covered? How many aren't?
Over time, stories like the one in The Atlantic come and go, and people forget them. But that would be a mistake.
People who use marijuana often reply to stories like this
with the claim they know that a great deal of pot is pure, and their
suppliers are ethical. One hopes that's true, but is it?
If some, most, or all of these highly contaminated pot farms
in California are run by Mexican drug cartels, don't expect state or
federal law enforcement to solve the problem. It isn't going to happen.
The resources aren't there, and neither is the determination.
The government of California considers the state to be a
sanctuary for illegal immigrants. So how is the government going to stop
some of these immigrants from becoming illegal pot growers who deploy
highly dangerous chemicals on a daily basis?
As for the California forests and rivers, government agencies
are far behind the curve. The illegal growers are, in effect, staging
wide-ranging random attacks on the environment.
This has nothing to do with a "progressive attitude" toward pot.
It has everything to do with criminals seeding the land with poison.
And it is yet one more consequence of the unchecked and
unprosecuted growth of the pesticide industry, in which, over many
decades, corporations have been manufacturing and selling all sorts of
heinous poisons---"better living through chemistry"---reversing
centuries of agricultural practice that fed populations good clean food.
|
|
Use this link to order Jon's Matrix Collections.
|
|
Jon Rappoport
The
author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM
THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US
Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a
consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the
expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he
has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles
on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin
Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and
Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics,
health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment