Stoned rabbits a concern for DEA as Utah debates medical marijuana bill

Editor's Note: Not really sure what to say on this one. You?

On a serious note, while SB 259 would legalize only edible marijuana products (along with marijuana cultivation and sales of edible products), the proposed plan is a very positive move in its scope of "qualifying illnesses," listed as: 

- acquired immune deficiency syndrome;

- cancer;

- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis;

- Alzheimer's disease;

- post-traumatic stress disorder;

- glaucoma; or

- a medical condition or treatment for a medical condition that produces, for a specific patient, one or more of the following: 

       (A) cachexia or physical wasting and malnutrition associated with chronic disease;

(B) persistent muscle spasms, including spasms caused by multiple sclerosis;

       (C) seizures, including seizures caused by epilepsy;

       (D) severe nausea; or

       (E) severe pain.

Utah is considering a bill that could make it the 24th state, along with Washington, DC, to legalize medical marijuana. But one Drug Enforcement Agency official is worried the move could impact the environment and even result in too many stoned rabbits.

DEA special agent Matt Fairbanks, also a member of Utah's marijuana eradication team, testified against the bill recently, explaining how quickly growing a cash crop like marijuana could get out of hand and the devastation that happens to the environment.

“I deal in facts. I deal in science,” Fairbanks told a Senate committee.

“I have seen entire mountainsides subject to pesticides, harmful chemicals and deforestation and erosion. The ramifications to the flora and animal life — even rabbits that have cultivated a taste for marijuana. One of them refused to leave us and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone."

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