Speaker 1: Today on Parts pervilion marijuana. The pot industry is growing
Speaker 1: really fast in states where it's been legalized, but an
Speaker 1: EPA decision on pesticides could bring all of that to
Speaker 1: a screeching halt. Hello and welcome once again to Parts
Speaker 1: per Billion, the Environmental Policy podcast from Bloomberg BNA. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, David Schultz. So we all know pot is
Speaker 1: legal in a few states Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Alaska,
Speaker 1: and in the very near future, it's going to be
Speaker 1: legal in even more states, including California and Massachusetts. Of course,
Speaker 1: all this legalization has essentially created a legal pot industry
Speaker 1: almost overnight, and that industry is booming. Last year, marijuana
Speaker 1: generated more than one hundred and forty million dollars in
Speaker 1: taxes and fees, and that was just in Colorado. So
Speaker 1: now the people who grow and sell pot in these
Speaker 1: states are no longer outlaws, but instead they're just basically
Speaker 1: well farmers. And like all farmers, pot growers want to
Speaker 1: protect their crops from all the bugs and weeds and
Speaker 1: mold that all all the farmers are pretty much constantly
Speaker 1: fighting all the time. But there's one problem. The EPA
Speaker 1: has to approve pesticide uses, and it still hasn't approved
Speaker 1: any pesticides for use on marijuana. Why is that because
Speaker 1: marijuana is still illegal at the federal level. Remember, during
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, the agency was actually working on figuring
Speaker 1: out a workaround that could help out pop growers. But
Speaker 1: now under Trump, the EPA has done a one point
Speaker 1: eighty on this. That's according to Tiffany Stecker Bloomberg bna's
Speaker 1: agricultural reporter, and Tiffany joins us now to talk about
Speaker 1: this major reversal on pot. Hello's Tiffany, Hi, David. Hello. So, first, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the growers, the people who are you know,
Speaker 1: in greenhouses and in maybe out in fields growing pot.
Speaker 1: What options did they have to kill pass? Either legal
Speaker 1: options or not so legal options. So pot growers do
Speaker 1: have options for treating their crop, their marijuana. They have
Speaker 1: a The states that have legalized pot, either for medicinal
Speaker 1: use or for recreational use, have put together a list
Speaker 1: of what they can legally use. And now these are
Speaker 1: pesticides that are pretty innocuous. They're made from say, garlic oil,
Speaker 1: and they're exempt from federal registration because they're not toxic.
Speaker 1: The thing with these pesticides is that they also don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of data on how effective they are,
Speaker 1: and they don't have a lot of information on how
Speaker 1: to use it. So there's not a lot of know
Speaker 1: how on how much to dilute for their cannabis plants
Speaker 1: or you know, how often to use it, and this
Speaker 1: is really hindering growers who would like to use them.
Speaker 1: So the pesticides that they can use are non toxic,
Speaker 1: which is good, but also may not work at killing pests,
Speaker 1: I guess, which is bad, right. It kind of defeats
Speaker 1: the purpose. I mean, I don't want to say that
Speaker 1: they don't kill, it's just there's not information on whether
Speaker 1: or not they do kill and how much is needed
Speaker 1: to get the job done. It sounds like, though, based
Speaker 1: on some data that you found, that even though there
Speaker 1: are no pesticides that are legally approved to use on
Speaker 1: pot in these states where it is legal, some of
Speaker 1: these growers are still using the pesticides anyway. Is that
Speaker 1: the sense that you're getting right now? I haven't really
Speaker 1: crunches data yet, but I have seen numbers from Oregon
Speaker 1: and Washington that shows that there are some pesticides being used.
Speaker 1: This isn't widespread, but it is there, and it is
Speaker 1: pesticides and fungicides that are concerning. One in particular is
Speaker 1: called miclobutanol. This is a pesticide than when heated creates
Speaker 1: hydrogen cyanid gas that's not very healthy to inhale. So
Speaker 1: this is concerning and it shows that growers are going
Speaker 1: to legal methods to do what they need to do.
Speaker 1: And these maybe growers who are growing the plants legally
Speaker 1: now through these new programs in the states, But are
Speaker 1: you having to resort to these pesticides that they really
Speaker 1: can't use? That's right. So during the Obama administration, the
Speaker 1: EPA was kind of I got the sense they were
Speaker 1: moving toward trying to have a workaround that allowed some
Speaker 1: pesticide growers to use certain pesticides in these particular states.
Speaker 1: How are they going to do this, because you know,
Speaker 1: the federal government still considers marijuana a legal drug. Two
Speaker 1: years ago, in twenty fifteen, the Office of Pesticide Programs
Speaker 1: at EPA came together. They saw that there are more
Speaker 1: and more states who wanted to allow their growers to
Speaker 1: use pesticides and said, this is an issue where we
Speaker 1: should really hand the registration to the states and oversee
Speaker 1: them as a federal EPA as a federal agent, see
Speaker 1: but have the states handle this? So these kind of
Speaker 1: requests are usually pretty uncontroversial. There's dozens of them that
Speaker 1: are issued every year. So it's like a state might say,
Speaker 1: let's say Texas is like, oh, we've got this big,
Speaker 1: you know, beetle infestation in our crops. We need to
Speaker 1: be able to use this pesticide. Let's just can we
Speaker 1: you know, e p A, can we just do this
Speaker 1: in Texas. It's that kind of thing, right, So EPA
Speaker 1: releases this guidance to to Colorado specifically, but really meant
Speaker 1: for all states that are have legal marijuana to say,
Speaker 1: these are the steps you need to take if you
Speaker 1: want to make this kind of request. You basically have
Speaker 1: to find some kind of parallel with say, hops or tobacco,
Speaker 1: because those are two plants that I guess are used
Speaker 1: kind of in similar ways to that marijuana would be used.
Speaker 1: That's right, and and that is exactly what the states did.
Speaker 1: Scott's a subsidiary if Scott's Miracle Grow ask certain states
Speaker 1: to whether they could ask EPA to register four of
Speaker 1: their pesticides. The states did that in late twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and last month in June, they got an answer from
Speaker 1: Scott Prewit himself. So the EPA told states what to do,
Speaker 1: they did it. Then the administration has changed. And then
Speaker 1: Scott prue It responded. What was his response, Uh, very simply. No,
Speaker 1: it was a very short letter one word, two letters. No,
Speaker 1: that's right. The EPA dashed the hopes of pest ridden
Speaker 1: pop rowers across the country. So why they make this
Speaker 1: about face? Is it just because Scott Prewit believes in
Speaker 1: clean living and hates hippies? Well maybe not, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a minute. But first we wanted
Speaker 1: to remind you about this new thing we're doing here
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Speaker 1: hashtag parts per being. All right, so we're chatting with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg bna's Tiffany Stecker about the EPA's evolving attitude towards
Speaker 1: using pesticides on pot. She says, you shouldn't necessarily assume
Speaker 1: preu It took this step for purely ideological reasons. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: I did speak to former officials at the EBA who
Speaker 1: said that Administrator Prewit is really putting these states in
Speaker 1: a bad situation where they need to provide tools for
Speaker 1: this growing industry and they can't. But you know, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, the Obama EPA was in a position
Speaker 1: where they could give advice and they could have a
Speaker 1: certain philosophy or point of view, but they were never
Speaker 1: in a decision where they had to make a decision
Speaker 1: and back it up lead. And you know, Scott Prewitt
Speaker 1: was in that position, and it's really not clear if
Speaker 1: he could have allowed these registrations and have a sound
Speaker 1: legal reason for it. So it might not necessarily be
Speaker 1: that that Prewit or the Trump administration is just like
Speaker 1: we don't like these pot smokers, you know, let's go
Speaker 1: get those hippies or whatever like there. It might be
Speaker 1: that they're they looked over, they had their lawyers looking
Speaker 1: over what the previous administration did, and they came to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that this really won't hold up in court.
Speaker 1: We can't really do this. Yes, that's a possibility. So
Speaker 1: what does this mean for growers now in these states
Speaker 1: you know, Washington, Oregon, Colorado soon to be California, in
Speaker 1: Massachussett's other states, do they just have to basically say,
Speaker 1: all right, we kind of have to you know, if
Speaker 1: we want to go bide by the law, we have
Speaker 1: to deal with lower yields because we're going to be
Speaker 1: dealing with PASS. There's not really much we can do
Speaker 1: to stop these pass We're going to lose crops. That's
Speaker 1: is that they're basically they're their only option. Well, at
Speaker 1: this point, I think that there are two ways this
Speaker 1: could go. Either the federal government could pass some kind
Speaker 1: of decree that would either legalize marijuana or hand the
Speaker 1: issue over to states and say this is not an
Speaker 1: issue of federal oversight anymore. Or they don't do that
Speaker 1: and that forces the industry to take up practices that
Speaker 1: don't rely on pesticide as much, such as organic farming
Speaker 1: or biotech. There is there are some plant biotech companies,
Speaker 1: one in Colorado specifically, that is working to develop marijuana
Speaker 1: that would be more resistant to PASS and clone plants
Speaker 1: so that they could be easily replaced without having to
Speaker 1: be treated with pesticides? Is it we're talking about GMO marijuana?
Speaker 1: You got, but that would be interesting. So I guess
Speaker 1: is that where we're headed is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: marijuana industry is going to have to look for a
Speaker 1: workaround around this. I mean, because this is a huge
Speaker 1: industry and you know, if if this were corn or soy,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't imagine they would just kind of
Speaker 1: throw up their hands and say, well, you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to lose a bunch of crops and not much
Speaker 1: we can do about it. You know, is this how
Speaker 1: is this going to affect the industry? And could it
Speaker 1: sort of put a halt to the to the growth
Speaker 1: of the industry. It's really early to say. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of these states are in the very very
Speaker 1: early stages of regulating marijuana. There's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: across the board on how it's going to be sold,
Speaker 1: how it's going to be regulated by the state government.
Speaker 1: So I think that's just one of the many questions
Speaker 1: is what direction is this industry going to go? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is I guess not the one of many questions
Speaker 1: that this industy he's gonna have to face. In the future.
Speaker 1: So that was Bloomberg bnas Tiffany Stecker talking about marijuana
Speaker 1: and pesticides. Thanks for chatting with us, Tiffany. For more
Speaker 1: of her reporting on the environmental issues surrounding agriculture, visit
Speaker 1: our website at BNA dot com. This episode of Partspabillion
Speaker 1: was produced by myself with help from Jessica Coombs and
Speaker 1: Rachel Daegel. Very special production assistance this week came from
Speaker 1: Katherine Rand. Thanks Catherine. The music for parts Pavillion is
Speaker 1: a Message and Wild Ones by Jizarre. They were used
Speaker 1: under a Creative Commons Attribution share like license. More information
Speaker 1: can be found at Betterwithmusic dot com.