Legalizing Marijuana for the Environment

On June 14th, at 6:30 p.m., at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Michael Sutton is going to be the head of a debate on whether or not the people of California should vote to set up a legal cannabis industry this November. The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) has the backing of important authority figures throughout the political world, including California’s lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsome, and United States Reps Jarred Huffman (D-San Rafael), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Ted Lieu (D-Torrance).

AUMA has also been supported by organizations such as California Council of Land Trusts, Drug Policy Alliance, the California Medical Association as well as California NAACP. Of course, it is unlikely that you will see President Barack Obama supporting cannabis legalization in public, however, he has made it clear that the marijuana laws currently in place are flawed. Americans are also beginning to support legalization more; at the moment, more than half the country supports legalization in some form.

Similar to other states that have tried to legalize or decriminalize marijuana, the arguments for legalization are typically geared towards tax revenues, social justice, and the medicinal properties of marijuana. However, as Sutton, the older president of the California Fish and Game Commission, said during interviews, voters should look at the effects that black market marijuana has had on the environment. Sutton’s efforts to reform cannabis legalization comes from an environmentalist perspective he took on after seeing the destructive side of cannabis.

“Because they were spending all their time on the north coast combating illegal growing operations, whether because of the poaching of wildlife, stealing water or cutting down forests,” Sutton stated, “these game wardens were distracted from their jobs. The last thing that they need to be doing is pulling marijuana plants out of the forest.”