Love outdoor pot? Is it time to market it?  A group of both Humboldt and Bay Area residents thinks so.  They have created a new website dedicated to promoting outdoor marijuana over indoor.

One line from the site sticks with me—- “market forces profiting from expensive indoor infrastructure advertise indoor’s peculiarities—most notably, uniformity and sterility—as if they’re virtues.” So true! Having tasted buckets of perfectly round, flawless factory farmed tomatoes, I know that “uniformity and sterility” are not virtues.  Those oddly shaped heirloom tomatoes found at the farmers’ market are more flavorful and practically bursting with vitamins. I suspect the same is true of outdoor buds compared to indoor buds.

The Grow it in the Sun website offers information about what the costs to the environment are when weed is grown indoors.

As urban areas begin to permit massive factories to cultivate tons of marijuana indoors, the massive energy and water use and subsequent air and water pollution are being overlooked in the new taxation green rush. The carbon footprint of indoor cultivation on the grid is one pound of CO2 gas per hour per 1000w light. How can anyone justify increased climate change to grow a weed indoors?

Their media links page points to some of the best articles about pot pollution out there (I’m not just saying it because they link to my blog—well, at least I hope not.) Two of my favorite are NPR’s The Environmental Cost of Growing Pot and The Environmental Costs of Pot (The later discusses outdoor as well as indoor pollution.)

This site isn’t nuanced.  This is an advocate site which has a position and pounds it in passionately. Since it’s a position I advocate, I like it. Check it out.  Below are their simplistic solutions to the problems of pot pollutions.  I know this isn’t the whole answer but it feels like a darn good start to me.

Solutions

The solution to the problems of pot pollution is simple: know your grower.

As a medical cannabis patient, you have the power to change things for the better. All you have to do is ask.

Ask for organic outdoor at your dispensary.

Ask your collective to cultivate sustainably.

Ask for information about the growers in your collective.

Where is your medicine coming from? Is it grown responsibly and organically in the sun? Is it factory-pharmed? Is it grown illegally in national forests or on outsized plantations?

If the budtender at your dispensary doesn’t know, ask them to find out. In the meantime, get your cannabis elsewhere.

Seek out collectives that will make you a partner in finding environmental solutions.

Join a collective that grows it in the sun.

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