Photo: IliberadamariaWhile it might be all natural, it turns out that toking the green isn’t all that green. Especially if it’s grown indoors. A new study by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, examines the carbon footprint of the indoor marijuana industry. The results might kill your buzz if you’re an environmentalist:
The analysis performed in this study finds that indoor Cannabis production results in energy expenditures of $5 billion each year, with electricity use equivalent to that of 2 million average U.S. homes. This corresponds to 1% of national electricity consumption or 2% of that in households. The yearly greenhouse-gas pollution (carbon dioxide, CO2 ) from the electricity plus associated transportation fuels equals that of 3 million cars. Energy costs constitute a quarter of wholesale value.
California, the mecca of medical marijuana, is by far the worst offender. There, the indoor pot industry is responsible for about 3 percent of the entire state’s electricity use, or about 8 percent of all household use.
Some of the biggest growing facilities have a carbon footprint on par with many industrial medical and technology operations. According to Mills, a typical indoor marijuana growing facility has “lighting as intense as that found in an operating room (500-times more than needed for reading), 6-times the air-change rate of a bio-tech laboratory and 60-times that of a home, and the electric power intensity of a data center.”
Crunching the numbers, the report uncovers some other mind-blowing stats:
- A single joint represents 2 pounds of CO2 emissions, an amount equal to running a 100-watt light bulb for 17 hours.
- Each four-by-four-foot production module doubles the electricity use of an average U.S. home. The added electricity use is equivalent to running about 30 refrigerators.
- Processed marijuana results in 3000-times its weight in CO2 emissions.
- For off-grid production, it requires 70 gallons of diesel fuel to produce one indoor Cannabis plant, or 140 gallons with smaller, less-efficient gasoline generators.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Let me see if I understand the post. (a) For growing Marihuana you need electricity, (b) for producing electricity you need fosiles (carbon, oil), (c) electricity produced by fosiles pollutes. Hence growing marihuana pollutes. Problem that wouldnt exist if electricity wasnt produce with fosiles, hence the real responsibles for the CO2 emissions are not the people who grows marihuana indoors but of the policy makers who havent decided yet for producing “green energy”. Right?
On the other hand if growing it became legal, there could be some type of regulation, maybe growers would be enforce to use LEDs instead of metal halide or maybe sun energy could be use as a form of “sustainable marihuana growing” who knows, but using this study to blame marihuana growers for being responsible of high CO2 emissions and, in the process, blaming pot, seems ridiculous. I dont say that the study does it but im sure that “prohibinionists” will say stuff like this.
You don’t need electricity to grow marijuana. You need sun shine, wind and rain, all of which fall out of the sky for free.
Unfortunately marijuana that is grown outdoors is often grown in national parks, contaminating the otherwise pristine environment. Land is cleared, rivers are fouled and the rangers are kept away with firearms.
Uncounted lives have been destroyed by keeping marijuana illegal. It will be a great day when marijuana can be grown in your backyard.
the fact that the first statement is not the estimate of pounds grown indoors each year and the source of that info just pours BS all over this “study”
That sucks, and I’ve read of other kinds of pollution from illegal marijuana farms from leaked fertiliser and oil.
Though it would also be interesting to know the environmental costs of brewing alcohol (as a more socially and legally-acceptable drug).
1st response: Yikes!
2nd response: So… how much of a carbon savings does growing the plants under sunlight produce? Oh, that’s right – 90% of the plant is going to be incinerated anyway – along with papers, butane, and/or phosphorous.
3rd response: So… shall we turn it all over to Gov. legislation and oversight, drag in corporate interests, introduce taxation and sales record keeping, add branding and advertising, follow with interdiction and rehab, and call it green-er?
4th response: Well, at least we don’t have a 4 3/4 gal per capita annual vodka intake – just 10 lbs of chocolate per capita – so maybe we aren’t as oppressed/depressed as some places. More chocolate please.
More Propaganda from the government to keep you thinking its a bad thing, but hey tobacco and alcohol are still legal… I mean, no one has ever died from smoking a pack of Lucky Stripes or from Driving home drunk right? Marijuana is the real killer and now its causing global warming… whats next from this menacing plant?
Is Marijuana going to support Al-Qaeda? Was Marijuana behind the Jewish Holocaust? Did God said in the bible himself that Marijuana is from the devil? Did Marijuana caused the Japanese Tsunami? I’m sure we will have our best Propaganda Minister get on this one immediately!
So legalize cultivation, most of it will be drawn outdoors like other crops and you not only reduce the carbon footprint but contribute carbon dioxide-hungry plants to reduce it.
I wonder how this would compare to the massive commercial hydroponic greenhouses that would pop up if marijuana were legalized and grown like tobacco and salad greens. On the one hand, the big farming operations would have a big efficiency advantage from the economy of scale; on the other, they’d seek to maximize yield and profit, which in many cases means hydroponic, indoor growing because of the improved yield per acre and quality control.