Close to Home: Allowing outdoor pot growing part of the solution, not the problem

I was relieved to see that Santa Rosa's proposed ban on legal outdoor cannabis cultivation has been defeated by the City Council (“Santa Rosa rejects ban on outdoor marijuana gardens,” Wednesday). One key provision of Proposition 64 was to permit adults to use and grow recreational marijuana, within certain limits set by the state as well as those set forth by cities or counties.

For many voters, including myself, part of the reason to support this proposition was to get the cultivation of marijuana out from the shadows, to bring it into the open where it could be monitored, enforced, regulated and taxed. Although there are some potential impacts that outdoor growing will have on our communities, forcing growers to grow indoors and/or in greenhouses has more negative consequences than letting folks grow the natural way.

Two oft-repeated arguments against outdoor cannabis cultivation are odors and crime. Neither of these issues would be even remotely solved by moving the plants indoors. Indoor cultivation, aside from using much more energy than outdoor, encourages growers to have plants continuously in flower. Outdoors, plants respond to the changing day length by initiating flower formation. This typically happens in the late summer or early fall. If the odor of cannabis flowers is what ails you, indoor growing will actually make this problem worse, with indoor growers producing cannabis odor year-round instead of primarily during harvest season. I am unaware of any specific requirements for the odor control of personal-use indoor cultivation, nor can I imagine any way to effectively enforce them.

Finally, indoor cultivation often relies on techniques that are more likely to leave dangerous chemical residues in the finished products.

As for crime, the only way to really decrease crime is to have cannabis become more commonplace and therefore of lesser value. Home brewers are not being assaulted in the night by intruders trying to steal a carboy full of home brew beer. The legalization of non-medical use is a huge step in the right direction.

In the meantime, keeping cannabis plants enclosed in greenhouses and indoor grow rooms merely encourages more violent crime - both by making the plants harder to steal (requires a home invasion instead of jumping a fence) and by encouraging people to grow more than the limit of six plants. With the higher initial investment required for indoor growing, as well as the increased privacy, what is to stop someone from growing more than the limit?

I have heard of neighbors complaining of odor and some even claim to be allergic to cannabis. This may be true. However, many plants in our landscapes are allergens to some individuals. We have not banned the planting of sycamore, oak or pine trees. And who has not occasionally wished for a ban on the use of manure that produces that “Sonoma aroma”? Still, to ban farmers from using animal waste on their fields would infringe on their rights while also causing our agrarian community to suffer in other ways.

Although I understand and am sympathetic to the arguments against legal outdoor cannabis cultivation, I'm afraid there is no way to legalize cannabis while making it invisible. Voters have elected to end the prohibition on marijuana, and that means change. In the long run, I think it will be change for the better.

Joel R. Grogan is a horticultural professional and an instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College. He lives in Santa Rosa.