When Your Tobaccy's Too Wacky

Weed is now legal for recreational use in California...legally. For years you hippy sons of bitches have been smoking it regardless. But my friend turned me on to an issue that I hadn't considered when it comes to the mass production of marijuana. No, not if it is organic or not. Fuck that. How about them pesticides? Yeah. That thought never crossed my mind until Cam mentioned it after listening to a podcast discussing it. Besides trying to figure out licensing and banking these shops and the consumers need to know what is being sprayed on shit that they will be smoking and in some cases eating. 

Right now there are over 1,300 medical dispensaries and they have until the middle of this year to sell all their possibly poisoned weed. I am making it sound way more dramatic than it is. Or maybe not dramatic enough. I have self diagnosed mental issues and can't always tell the difference. By summer time there are going to be stronger standards about having crops tested for pesticides and the amount so be worried when shit becomes cheaper in June. Under California's current marijuana laws it is said that less than 5% of the inventory has been tested for contaminants. Some of these can be fungicides and rodent killers.

“But we eat fruits and vegetables that get sprayed and we're fine” you say from your toilet while reading this. True. But I haven't smoked an orange in years. Shit's different when it is smoked than eaten. Consumers should be hoping that shops are trying to handle this shit before time is up. A Steep Hill study has shown that back in September 86% of marijuana plants were contaminated with pesticides. To grow the amount of marijuana that is going to be needed corners are going to have to be cut. There's no way around that unless you want seasons where it is available. There are going to be no “mom and pop” type places where you get your weed. All shops are going to look like Med Men. Speaking of which...

I live near the one in WeHo and there is a fucking line going out the door and down the street from opening to closing. They have security monitoring the line and everything. I remember for the first few days news vans showing up and interviewing people. Someone I know that does the Mary-ju-Anna described them as “the Wal-Mart of weed.” I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not. She said “If you don't know what good weed is like you'll like them.” I'm not saying that they use pesticides...but I'm not not saying they do either. The pesticides/chemicals that have been found in marijuana like myclobutanil, abamectin, etoxazole and spiromesifen have also been found in edibles. There have not been any long term studies down on the effects these chemicals have on humans. Back in the day cigarettes were suggested to kids with asthma and everyone thought that they were safe. It wasn't until years later people realized that the shit in cigarettes was deadly and then they found out which were the most dangerous and it evolved to e-cigs and vape pens. Take out the tar situation and keep that sweet, sweet, nicotine.

This is where animal testing will need to be done.

I know. I know. You live the animals. If we stopped hunting so much we could have streets teaming with mountain lions and coyotes. Wouldn't that be cool? So yeah. Animal testing is done to make sure we can eat, wear, smoke, or smell like something. But since weed is still illegal federally no such testing will be done so many people consuming this now mass produced marijuana will be guinea pigs. Yay?

So how does this happen? I get pesticides being used on plants and all that but with weed how does it continue after crops continue to grow. Apparently from “clones.” Some chemicals get washed off in rain and whatnot but some get inside the plant, stay, and as crops from those plants grow the chemical stays in. Other crops also get contaminated by these plants and so on. This means that even if a grower has never used pesticides that the clone that they started with may have been.

Steep Hill tested 124 plant subjects and of those 124 only 17 had no detectable residue. “Less than 14 percent of 124 randomly selected clones from different regions were free of any pesticide residue and 77.4 percent of the clones tested failed current proposed California cannabis pesticide regulations. It is clear there is a need for clone monitoring.” This is not a case of the government trying to make it harder for businesses. You want stringent testing especially if you are smoking some shit. The state knows how well states that have legalized marijuana have done financially. But no one wants the lawsuits that will come up when people start belching up their lungs a few years from now because they smoked that kind bud. The messed up thing is that weed will probably be used to treat the pain associated with it.

I'm not sitting here saying that folks shouldn't smoke weed. I don't care. I don't like the way it smells and don't want to be high. Just not my thing even though many people think I get high (either through weed or prescriptions pills) but I assure you I will pass any drug test known to man. I just have thoughts and ideas that people on drugs have. Just be careful of going nuts on something that is legal now when it could possibly be causing unknown damage.