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The arrogance of the DEA never ceases to amaze. This move by them to use an
industrial herbicide on ditch-weed without proper environmental studies is a slap in
the face to environmentalists and farmers, much more than to anti-prohibitionists.
It will be interesting to see how these groups with their vastly more powerful lobbies
react to this. Wiping out ditch-weed is pointless, but a very real threat to farmers and
the environment.Moreover, there is the very real risk that if spraying is done on mature plants, some of
them will reach the market with unknown health risks for the users. For all the talk of
saving teenagers from indoor grown marijuana, the fact is that the younger consumers
are the least knowledgeable and least affluent consumers, hence the ones most likely to
buy contaminated weed.In other words, those who the DEA claims to be trying to save from a non-toxic herb are the ones most likely to be harmed by their poison.
Sound familiar?April 24, 1998
There is a potentially serious environmental problem with far reaching implications,
which need immediate action. The DEA has proposed a new program for industrial
hemp eradication titled "Cannabis Eradication In The Contiguous United States and
Hawaii," dated April 1998 and is available free at the DEA’s Arlington headquarters
(301) 734-4839. It is the DEA’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)
which seeks clearance to spray "cannabis" with the industrial herbicide, TRICLOPYR.
The DEA considers spraying Triclopyr so benign to the environment, that they
are not even considered doing a basic Environmental Assessment beforehand and
will not be going through the Environmental Impact Statement procedures.
The DEA has set a deadline of June 01, 1998 to send comments on their SEIS draft. P>If implemented, this program will enable the DEA to harvest an economic
windfall through the wholesale eradication of hundreds of millions of
otherwise inaccessible wild industrial hemp plants. The program will
also give the DEA the ability to greatly increase the percentages of
total industrial hemp plants eradicated far above present levels.The figures from a Vermont Legislative study reveal that of the $500
million allocated by the federal government for DEA’s Cannabis
Eradication and Suppression Program’s budget, 98% was used to destroy
industrial hemp plants. This report is available by calling the
Vermont State Auditor at (802) 828-2281.(Note: For environmental reasons, Vermont has halted the spraying of
triclopyr along its railroad system.)The DEA tried spraying twice before in the early 1980s with paraquat,
but this time they want to substitute paraquat with triclopyr, which is
"supposedly" considered less toxic to humans than paraquat. The question
of whether triclopyr may possibly be a neurotoxic like paraquat has not
been addressed and the DEA has not considered the environmental effects
of triclopyr on migratory birds or their habitat.Marijuana is one of the Midwests most valuable cover plants for upland game,
and some of the proposals for eradicating it could have terribly damaging effect
on all other upland-game cover. And cover is the name of the hunting game. No cover
means no game and no hunting.
Most farmers dont care whether marijuana grows on their land or not. The weed is
an annual of the edges, easily controlled in fields by cultivation. It doesnt interfere
with agriculture. Heavy-stalked and many branched, it provides great hard-core cover
for upland game during the grim days of late winter. Gamebirds also feed on its seed,
but the food aspect is less important than its value as cover.
Of all the ideas for control yet proposed, the most frightening is the possibility
that a government agency would embark on a massive spray campaign, using herbicides
that would wipe out marijuana---along with thousands of acres of other broad leafed
cover plants.
Marijuana occurs mixed in with other edge weeds in field borders, gullies, corners,
stream bottoms, fence rows---the traditional cover areas for upland game. If a broad leaf
herbicide were applied indiscriminately, perhaps from airplanes, upland game would
be hit with actual herbicides.C. Phillip Agee, chief of research for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, gave
a report to the Nebraska Weed Control Conference in 1968 that sums up the feelings
of professional wildlife managers toward mass spray campaigns. At that time Nebraska
was considering a statewide control program, which never got off the ground.
"The application of chemicals," Agee said, "would result in the control of a broad
array of plants. Among these would be ragweed, nettle and fruit-bearing shrubs on
stream bottom sites, fireweed, pigweed, lambs-quarter, partridge pea, and sunflower
on upland sites. The net result would be to shift the composition of the plant community
from its present grassy-weedy complex toward a grass-only complex.
"To be sure, the proposed hemp control program would not reduce Nebraskas
population of bobwhite quail to zero, but it is equally certain that such ecologic
changes in the plant communities would reduce their capacity to support bobwhites
and other valuable species."
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