It’s a plant. In a few years, farmers will cultivate legal marijuana under natural sunlight. Right now, illegal marijuana is cultivated in environmentally destructive wilderness “grows” and in suburban basements under artificial lights, with massive carbon footprints. When legal marijuana is grown by farmers, it will be virtually worthless. This is important. Financial incentives drive destructive cultivation practices.
Mexican drug cartels don’t sneak into national forests to cultivate cucumbers and tomatoes. They cannot compete with farmers. For the sake of the environment, the sooner the marijuana plant is treated as a legal agricultural commodity, the better.