DEA warns of stoned rabbits if Utah passes medical marijuana

Washington Post ^ | March 02, 2015 | Christopher Ingraham

[Ken H]

Utah is considering a bill that would allow patients with certain debilitating conditions to be treated with edible forms of marijuana. If the bill passes, the state's wildlife may "cultivate a taste" for the plant, lose their fear of humans, and basically be high all the time.

That's according to testimony presented to a Utah Senate panel (time stamp 58:00) last week by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"I deal in facts. I deal in science," said special agent Matt Fairbanks, who's been working in the state for a decade. He is member of the "marijuana eradication" team in Utah. Some of his colleagues in Georgia recently achieved notoriety by raiding a retiree's garden and seizing a number of okra plants.

-snip-

Fairbanks said that at some illegal marijuana grow sites he saw "rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. ..." He continued: "One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone.

[tumblindice]

[WayneS]

"I deal in facts. I deal in science," said special agent Matt Fairbanks...

...immediately prior to launching in to a story which contained nothing but anecdotal evidence...

[BigEdLB]

Stoned rabbits? As long as they don’t get behind the wheel of a car... Let them alone.

[Beagle8U]

Studies found that squirrels forced to smoke 50 joints a day tended to play with their nuts, rather than store them.

[WayneS]

A CLASSIC bad sci-fi film.

[DJ Taylor]

"One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone."

The marijuana farmer probably had a pet rabbit.

[Flick Lives]

[WayneS]

Fairbanks spoke of his time eliminating back-country marijuana grows in the Utah mountains, specifically the environmental costs associated with large-scale weed cultivation on public land: "Personally, I have seen entire mountainsides subjected to pesticides, harmful chemicals, deforestation and erosion," he said. "The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown."

Mr. Fairbanks is missing the point that if marijuana is legalized, people will be FAR less likely to cultivate it on public land.

If he cares so much about the mountainsides and the forests then it seems to me we would welcome legalization.

[W.]

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[Hugin]

One of the best-worst. I think it might have even taken place in Utah. Or maybe Nevada.

[tacticalogic]

"I deal in facts. I deal in science,"

I deal in original intent of enumerated powers.

[EEGator]

Get the Holy hand grenades!

[TigersEye]

Easy hunting is now a problem?

[eyeamok]

“I deal in facts. I deal in science,”??

What is more dangerous to the Public:
1. Rabbits eating weed and getting a buzz
2 Public Servants with Guns jacked up on Steroids

[Forgotten Amendments]

Always nice to see a government parasite thrashing about in the final death throes of losing his job.

What's Reagan's quote? "The closest thing to eternal life ..."

Wonder how the rock/paper/scissors tournament is going down at the Ebola Czar's office?

[nickcarraway]

No, obviously they are for it. How about the fact that it will lead the government to expand ten times and be in everyone’s business to a degree that makes the cutrrent situation look like anarchy.

[Kirkwood]

Stop making sense. LOL

[discostu]

Legalization might expand the government’s revenue, but done properly it doesn’t expand the government’s power. Much like the end of Prohibition there are good ways to handle it and bad, we see Washington doing it very badly right now (ironically learning NONE of the lessons from how they badly handled alcohol which they eventually got rid of). Colorado seems to be handling it well, Alaska had such a hard time making it illegally legalization is really a no-op.

We’ll see how it plays out. By I doubt highly it’ll be 10 times worse. I doubt highly it will be noticeably worse in most places.

[dfwgator]

I got news for 'em.....MJ has been growing wild for thousands and thousands of years

"And we never knew what it was called."