How Prohibition Pushed Cannabis Cultivation Indoors

As the War on Drugs ramped up, cannabis cultivators moved to the shadows and began to cultivate their plants in discrete, indoor locations. Today, many growers continue to employ indoor methods to grow their plants. But is this the best way to do it?

In the 1970s, the United States, as led by President Richard Nixon, waged a worldwide War on Drugs, in which Nixon declared certain drugs “public enemy number one” — cannabis being one of them.

Now, as the War on Drugs comes to an end, societies are realizing that prohibition isn’t necessarily the best option when it comes to drug use. When drugs become illegal, people simply become more discrete about their usage, and a black market emerges as a result. This is what happened during the alcohol prohibition in the 20s, which led to the proliferation of homebrew beverages, which are often a much higher alcohol level than beer and lead to higher rates of hospitalizations. And more recently, this is precisely what happened with cannabis. As cannabis became more dangerous to grow, growers moved their efforts indoors, and when people couldn’t get their hands on real weed, they would buy synthetic weed — often leading to higher…