Globally, the natural environment faces serious challenges and degradation on a scale never before seen in human history. Illicit drug crop cultivation, drug production, trafficking, and drug use all contribute to this degradation by accelerating loss of biodiversity, destroying sensitive natural habitats, and creating pollution.
Share these resources from The Environmental Impact of Drugs…Know the Truth campaign on social media and with your contacts to help educate on this serious issue.
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Short animated video in English
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Here are some of the impacts of indoor marijuana cultivation retrieved from IASIC1.org:
- Marijuana consumes 1% of the nation’s energy use – the same as driving 3 million cars.
- 1 small grow house with 10 grow lights consumes as much electricity as 10 average US homes.
- 1 gram joint creates 10 pounds of CO2 pollution, equivalent to running 10 10-watt LED light bulbs for 76 hours or driving 22 miles in a 44 mph Prius.
- Each indoor grown marijuana plant is equivalent to 70 gallons of oil.
- Indoor marijuana consumed 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually or 15 million metric tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere each year. This is an expenditure of $6 billion per year on energy, nationally, which amounts to 9% of California household electricity use.
- CO2 emissions by the average marijuana user is 59% of total household carbon footprint in Colorado.
- It is estimated that marijuana energy constitutes 3% of electricity demand in parts of Washington and 0.5-1% in Colorado.
Reference: Mills, Evan & Zeramby, Scott. (2020). Energy Use by the Indoor Cannabis Industry: Inconvenient Truths for Producers, Consumers, and Policymakers.
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