DEA agent to Utah Senate: Pass medical marijuana bill, expect to see high wildlife

A rabbit.
(Image credit: iStock)

If Utah passes a medical marijuana bill, a DEA agent warns, more than just the patients might get stoned.

During testimony to a Utah Senate panel last week, DEA special agent Matt Fairbanks said that wildlife could "cultivate a taste" for the plant, The Washington Post reports. "I deal in facts," said Fairbanks, a member of the DEA marijuana eradication team in the state, talking about his experience with pot growing on public lands. "I deal in science. Personally, I have seen entire mountainsides subjected to pesticides, harmful chemicals, deforestation, and erosion. The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.