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

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."

Fairbanks said he witnessed at some illegal marijuana grow sites rabbits who became dependent on marijuana and "refused to leave us... his natural instincts to run were somehow gone." As the Post points out, if it becomes legal, the plant won't be growing out in the wild, so bunnies would be able to frolic through the forest drug-free. The panel approved the bill, and it will be debated in the full Senate this week.

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