environment

  • canada industrial cannabis village farmsRolling Stone dubs weed a “climate villain,” as cannabis sold in any state where it’s legal must be grown in-state. Because not every state boasts the year-round warm climate that cannabis thrives in, the vast majority of cannabis is grown indoors in large facilities. And there are other reasons indoor growing is thriving, as Evan Mills pointed out in a recent Slate piece, from misconceptions about the potency of cannabis grown indoors to budtenders who “tend to toss outdoor-grown product onto the bottom shelf.” Mills argues that the only way to make cannabis truly “green” is to grow it outside.

  • There are plenty of predictions about how cannabis farming is poised to go corporate, but Big Marijuana is not inevitable, says Ryan Stoa, a professor of law at Concordia University. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But Stoa, the author of Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry,argues that in a world where cannabis is legal, there is a route for cannabis agriculture to stay sustainable and local. The Verge spoke to Stoa about what’s fending off a corporate takeover, potential legal regulations that could help the industry remain small, and the environmental impact of farming. (See also: Can artisanal weed compete with ‘Big Marijuana’?)