May 2005
Are You Toking Pesticides?
Northern California law enforcers, consumers and growers fight to regulate medical marijuana like any other crop
by Eliza Thomas
“We regulate wine-grape growers and pear growers and everybody else, so why shouldn’t we also regulate pot-growers?” asks Dave Bengston, Agricultural Commissioner of Mendocino County. “It’s really an agricultural crop. In our eyes, it should be subject to a lot of the same laws and regulations as commercial agriculture.”
Concerned by reports of medical marijuana users getting sick from pesticide-treated pot, and wondering how to apply the county’s strict nursery, chemical and environmental regulations to the estimated 3,000 marijuana growers in his jurisdiction, Bengston sought clarification from federal regulators. But an easy answer was not to be had.
First Bengston called Ray Green, manager of California’s organic program. “Our concern,” remembers Bengston, “was that because so many medical marijuana users are immune-compromised people, people undergoing chemo, it was important that these folks avoid the added danger of ingesting pesticides.”
Green answered that since medical marijuana was legal in the state of California, there was “no reason in the world” why pesticide-free growers couldn’t apply for organic certification. But Bengston was cautious. “I was worried that the DEA would come in and pull the trigger on the basis of federal law. So I asked for the answer in writing. And when I heard back, it was 180 degrees different from what they had told me verbally.”
The Department of Food and Agriculture’s response to Benson was loud and clear. Growing marijuana, even one plant, is illegal according to federal law. Therefore, as representatives of the department, the county’s agricultural commissioner cannot regulate marijuana growers.
“I thought to myself, well that’s some kind of weird double standard,” says Bengston. “Even one plant is illegal, and yet, we’ve got people growing it on their front lawns. We’ve got thousands of growers, and any time you have that many, whether its cherries, corn, marijuana, whatever, you’ve got a major agricultural issue. How am I supposed to keep consumers from getting sick, or marijuana growers from dumping chemicals into the creek? What do we do to control pests, if marijuana turns out to be a host for something?”
“It’s like Food and Ag was saying, ‘Well these people are breaking federal law, so they’re not subject to state law.’ They’re exempt from nursery regulations, they’re exempt from meeting certified organic requirements. What they’re doing is illegal, so they don’t have to abide by any other laws.”
Bengston hopes that the Supreme Court decision sheds some light on the murky waters of medical marijuana regulation. And in the meantime?
“I can pretty much tell you, I’m not only working for the Food and Ag, I’m also an agent of the EPA, obligated to enforce pesticide laws. If someone gets sick, we’re going to investigate,” avers Benson. “But we’re in the low season now. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
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