California is the fruit and nut basket of the world, with almonds, wine from grapes, stone fruits and citrus grown here available in China, Maine and many points in between. The state is also the country's marijuana garden, with more cannabis grown here than any other state, according to law enforcement estimates (us and Mexico, here to be blamed for your problems).
That's a lot of crops to grow in an extreme drought, like the one that's dried up most of the state. Yet it's marijuana, not wine grapes or almonds, that's being blamed for exacerbating the dry spell -- and it's marijuana that could drink up every last drop.
Recent stories in Mother Jones and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat claim that the state's outdoor cannabis industry could literally "suck California dry," killing off the state's famous salmon and causing other untold environmental destruction.
The hysteria accompanying these doobie-wrought doomsday scenarios is Reefer Madness-reminiscent, complete with histrionic headlines like today's "A Single Pot Plant Uses HOW Much Water?!" in Mother Jones, in case you didn't quite get the point. There's no doubt cannabis consumes lots of water. But not nearly as much as the state's Big Ag, as the story "It Takes How Much Water to Grow an Almond?!" (also in Mother Jones, two months ago) displays.
The problem with the recent coverage is that the estimates vary wildly and all sound suspiciously like "back-of-the-envelope" figures. For example: Mendocino County sheriff Tom Allman says there are 1 million illegal pot plants in Mendocino County. A nice, round figure with no hard data behind it.
Likewise, Scott Bauer -- the senior scientist with state Fish and Wildlife who says that marijuana can consume "all of the water" -- says that each pot plant can soak up to six gallons of water a day. Using his figures, the Press Democrat estimates that with between 2 to 4 million illegal pot plants in the state, as many as 1.8 billion gallons of water are used annually.
That sounds like a lot. And it is. However, there's a vast gulf between 2 million plants and 4 million plants -- 200 percent, to be exact. And all of it pales in comparison to the water sucked up by the state's almond crop, much of which is shipped overseas.
A single almond uses a gallon of water, as Mother Jones showed in February before the magazine moved on to the marijuana question. California produces almost all of the world's almonds -- and just one almond-growing region near Fresno County, with 75,000 acres dedicated to the trees, uses 100 billion gallons of water a year, the East Bay Express reported.
State wildlife scientist Bauer says that a comprehensive study on marijuana's water use is forthcoming. That's good. We welcome it and we can't wait to read it. In the meantime, what is someone concerned about all of the above to do?
That's a good question. Nobody can say. Might be a good idea to stop eating and stop smoking marijuana -- and take shorter showers while you're at it.
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