One year into the legal cannabis industry, there are still no outdoor cannabis farms in New Jersey. In an industry where barriers to entry are already notoriously high, Choubey said there are few people willing to spend the time and money to try to get permission to cultivate outdoors, despite its sustainability and benefits to the environment.
“We’re the only ones — because it’s so hard,” Choubey said.
For a product long associated with the social and environmental justice movement, cannabis actually creates a lot of environmental pollution, experts say. Studies have found the production and distribution of cannabis requires a substantial amount of energy, emits greenhouse gases and generates significant waste with plastic product packaging.
“Cannabis is really meant to be grown outdoors, to be the most sustainable,” said Robert Mejia, adjunct professor of cannabis studies at Stockton University.
There are places where cannabis grows wild — Northern California, Mexico, Jamaica, Panama — and that’s really where the plant is meant to grow outdoors, Mejia said.
“So, what happens in a lot of the different states that have similar weather to New Jersey, is that we grow it indoors, and as soon as you bring it indoors, you’re bringing in a lot of issues with sustainability,” Mejia said.