Culture

Growing marijuana can be very harmful for the environment unless proper precautionary steps are taken. A lot of outdoor marijuana growers think that if they buy a piece of land, that they can do whatever they want. That is not the case, as some people in California are learning the hard way. Outdoor marijuana growers need to be good stewards of not only the land that they are growing on, but also to the ground water and waterways that go beyond their property’s borders.

A lot of growers have a ‘get mine, and the hell with yours’ mentality. They are in it for the profit, and nothing else. That’s not to say that all growers are that way, because that’s certainly not the case. But there are more than a few bad apples out there that follow practices that make it harder for the rest of us. California recently issued a massive fine to some growers that didn’t follow environmental rules. Per Courthouse News:

A California board that protects water from degradation by marijuana farms has issued its first fine: $297,400 against a landowner and a contractor in Shasta County. It’s the first penalty issued by the multi-agency Cannabis Pilot Project, staffed by state and regional water boards and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board announced the fine Friday. The Cannabis Pilot project was formed specifically to address adverse environmental impacts caused by marijuana cultivation in California

Read More:http://www.theweedblog.com/california-marijuana-growers-respect-environment-or-get-heavily-fined/

It’s the law of supply and demand in action: When a commodity is illegal, it tends to become scarcer and its price rises on the black market. Make it legal again, and its price will fall.

That’s been the case for marijuana, as this map by Frank Bi of Forbes shows. Marijuana is now a lot cheaper in the states that have legalized it than in the states that have not.

The map shows the average price of an ounce of high-quality marijuana in each state. The data is crowd-sourced via PriceofWeed.com, a website where people anonymously submit the cost of weed in their area.

Nationally, the average price of an ounce of weed is $324. But in four states that have legalized or decriminalized pot – Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska -- the price of an ounce of weed has fallen below $300. Oregon is the cheapest, where an ounce of high-quality marijuana goes for only $204, almost half the cost in North Dakota, the most expensive state.

Read More:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/26/map-the-price-of-marijuana-in-every-state/