The irony here is that cannabis is often associated with a more liberal leaning population... one that also tends to care about the environment, conservation, and global warming as well as assistance to low-income wage earners.



The long term result of adding such a profitable crop into the mix (fighting against for major food crops) is that the amount of land used to cultivate food will decrease - thus creating higher demand for the wheat, corn, rice, etc... that would have been grown on that very same land. The price of food will go up (hurting the poor). Water demands for recreational harvests will exaserbate already troubling water situations (droughts). The environment will suffer. But maybe, just maybe (I really have no idea on this one) cannabis crops will be better at clearing out green house gasses than its competitors. We can only hope.



One great example of all of this is Yemen (yup - that Yemen, where the poor are radicalized into political fighters, the water table is drying up, and they depend on imported food from the international community just to feed themselves)... But it wasn't always like that. The fields once used for food are now growing khat (qhat) in such massive amounts that there isn't enough food to eat nor water to grow crops, and the people suffer as their addiction withers away at any ability to do anything to improve their situation (other than buying more khat).



Yes, it's an extreme case but as a case study of the negative effects on farming and the environment, Yemen paints a sad picture. Then again, this is America and we can encourage nutritional food farming by increase farm subsidies to for those crops, so that their earnings match the cannabis yield. No problem - oh, except higher taxes (but for a good cause: food).