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Can cannabis go green?

With its demand for water, land and artificial lighting, cannabis growing can leave a large environmental footprint. But heightened awareness could make cultivation more benign.
  1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan

    1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan is a freelance science writer in Portland, Oregon.

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About four years ago, a flurry of headlines declared that cannabis cultivation was “sucking California dry”. The stories appeared in several major news outlets, many of which made the assertion that a single cannabis plant guzzles about 22 litres of water each day.

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Nature 572, S8-S9 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02526-3

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Cannabis, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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