Thanks to Prop. 54, California drivers will have increased accidents due to drug use, mostly marijuana. That will cause the cost of basic auto insurance to rise, more people in hospitals, more health care costs to the taxpayers and problems at work. Another problem is that marijuana needs a lot of water and energy to grow.
“The California Public Utilities Commission met this week in San Francisco with marijuana farmers and utilities, to figure out how the state will be able to provide the 1 to 2 percent spike in electricity demand it expect to see from pot farms. Local CBS affiliate KPIX reports that regulators were clear that they aren’t sure how they will be able to supply the energy needed.”
That means the cost of energy for your family and business will go up—smokers will get “high” on the drug, the rest of us will payer higher energy costs so those with fried brains can lose their sense of reality.
Will California’s power grid be able to keep up with legal marijuana’s demand?
Riley McDermid, San Francisco Business Times, 3/2/17
California energy regulators are warning marijuana farmers that the state’s power grid does not have the capacity to support the increased demand it expects from electricity-hungry growing operations now that weed is legal in the state.
The California Public Utilities Commission met this week in San Francisco with marijuana farmers and utilities, to figure out how the state will be able to provide the 1 to 2 percent spike in electricity demand it expect to see from pot farms. Local CBS affiliate KPIX reports that regulators were clear that they aren’t sure how they will be able to supply the energy needed.
“We currently are expecting flat or declining growth in California, so if it starts to go in the other direction, then we’re going to have to make sure that the electricity is there for both these uses and everybody else,” CPUC President Michael Picker told the station.
Colorado, which legalized weed for recreational purposes in 2012, saw about a 2 percent increase in electrical demand from marijuana being grown indoors. But Hezekiah Allen, a Humboldt County pot grower and executive director of the California Growers Association, told KPIX that he expects many indoor operations to move outside now that marijuana is legal — and said that the industry is increasingly turning to solar and wind power.
“Our policy framework is agricultural focused. The Department of Food and Agriculture regulates farms, not factories. And I think we’re going to see a lot more cannabis on farms than warehouses in a few years,” Allen said.
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