Every April 20th, UC Berkeley students flock to the campus’s Memorial Glade, transforming it from its usual sunbathing and picnic spot to a hub for celebrating legal cannabis. The state of California only recently changed marijuana from its 1996 status as a medicinal herb to recreational in 2016, but since then, illicit cannabis cultivation has been rampant. Illegal cultivation of marijuana and its harmful practices are not new and contribute significantly to a rapidly growing industry worth more than $214-344 billion legally and illegally worldwide. In February 2023, authorities seized $19 million in illegal cannabis from a West Berkeley warehouse. That same year, Alameda County seized $77.8 million worth of black market marijuana. As of April 11th this year, Alameda county has seized roughly $53.6 million in illegal marijuana. These trends show no sign of the illegal industry slowing.

Cannabis is a business worth billions, having grossed $3.1 billion in 2019, and it has only been rising since, putting it amongst the ranks of California’s top agricultural products. Yet, as environmental and economic pressures mount from illicit grows, there is an urge for reform of cannabis cultivation practices. This rapidly expanding industry is loaded with environmental concerns including pollution, wildfire hazards, water and energy use, wildlife displacement, and ecosystem damage.

To help relieve these pressures, groups such as the Berkeley Cannabis Research Center (CRC) have spent years collecting vital information on legal and illegal marijuana cultivation. One of their missions is to better understand the current farming policies for marijuana and traditional crops. The CRC's peer-reviewed research on pressing topics of the agricultural industry in and outside of California provides previously hard to acquire statistics. With an exceptional lack of information surrounding cannabis cultivation due to its federally illicit status as a schedule one drug, this research is instrumental to cultivating the cannabis industry by understanding its strengths and weaknesses.

The CRC is a group of interdisciplinary scholars of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students founded upon shared environmental concerns with interest in the social and environmental dimensions of agriculture and production. Directed by Michael Polson, a doctor of anthropology, the group is funded by grants from the Department of Cannabis Control, the Resources Legacy Fund, and crowdfunding. The CRC's research proposes policy restructuring by collecting and understanding data on licit and illicit grows. The CRC’s policy proposals work to find alternatives to the realities of legal and illegal marijuana cultivation. By using satellite imagery, field statistics, social surveys, remote sensing, and modeling, the CRC investigates how cannabis cultivation affects water, wildlife, and produces pollution.

One CRC study centered on Northern California focuses on the water demands in the legal and illegal industry emphasizing the harmful effects of illicit cannabis cultivation on the environment. The report encompasses Humboldt and Mendocino counties, using satellite mapping to prove that disproportionate amounts of water are used by unpermitted cannabis cultivators in the dry season weakening an already struggling environment.

Potential dangers of illicit cannabis cultivation sites include decreased freshwater availability, as unpermitted farms extract unregulated amounts of water during the dry season, posing risks to freshwater species. These water concerns don't strictly apply to cannabis cultivators, as they also mirror the problems of current western water policies that are ill-equipped for worsening water shortages accompanying climate change. Policies that are in place now do not encourage farmers nor landowners of any crop to engage in conserving the water, rivers, or fish.

With climate change and water conservation issues becoming more prominent and a rapidly growing industry of cannabis cultivation rooted in FHSZs, cannabis cultivation could see serious problems in the near future. To address the environmental concerns of cannabis, further steps must be taken by the state. As the market continues to grow, proper regulation now can help set up improved laws for the whole of California’s agricultural practices, improving fire safety and water use among many other problems.

Legal cannabis cultivation practices are currently set up within the models provided for farming traditional crops. Further complicating the matter is the fact that cannabis cultivation is prohibited at the county level. This brings a variety of difficulties for cultivators and explains why illegal grows are still a problem. Many California cannabis farms that continue to grow illegally do not do so in blatant disregard for the environment. Often, these lands are run by small farmers attempting to continue to make a living. Small unpermitted farms have reported that their decision to remain in the illicit industry is related to high compliance costs and competition from larger operations, and as tax rates inch higher from year to year, smaller grows have less and less of a chance of making it in the legal industry.
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It’s important to recognize the issues of the rapidly expanding marijuana market of California and understand that with very few statistics, studies, and documented agricultural work behind it, groups such as the CRC play a crucial part. Similarly, viewing the cannabis industry through too stringent of a lens can overshadow work of groups like the CRCs and their efforts to better agricultural practices in California.

California is a state that rakes in millions from Cannabis sales. As of 2023, the city of Berkeley sold more than $5 million in the fourth quarter and the state of California in that same quarter sold over $1 billion in marijuana. Investigating how pollution, wildfires, water, and energy use are involved in this industry is good for the environment and the economics of California as a whole. With projections for California’s legal cannabis market size to grow 12.2% from 2023 to 2030, efforts to recognize and change these laws are fundamental to ensuring that marijuana may be a productive and green industry.

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