DEA Fears Bunnies May Get High as Balls off Medical Marijuana in Utah

The Utah State Senate is considering a bill that would make it legal for people with “chronic and debilitating diseases” to consume edible medical marijuana. But no one has paused to consider the effect that will have on the woodland creatures of Utah; a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration warned today that they’ll all likely get hooked on the pot.

The Washington Post reports that Special Agent Matt Fairbanks, a member of the DEA’s “cannabis eradication” team, testified at a hearing last week that legal pot leads, inextricably, to increasingy beady-eyed little rabbits jonesing for their next fix:

Fairbanks spoke of his time eliminating back-country marijuana grows in the Utah mountains, specifically the environmental costs associated with large-scale weed cultivation on public land: “Personally, I have seen entire mountainsides subjected to pesticides, harmful chemicals, deforestation and erosion,” he said. “The ramifications to the flora, the animal life, the contaminated water, are still unknown.”

Fairbanks said that at some illegal marijuana grow sites he saw “rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. …” He continued: “One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone.”

It seems like legal pot farms might not have all that much in common with backcountry marijuana bootleggers, but hey, you can’t blame the cannabis eradication guy for trying to keep his job. The DEA remains very concerned about the dangers of marijuana consumption by human beings too, and claim there’s not yet enough evidence to determine whether it’s beneficial as a medical treatment. Despite Fairbanks’ warnings, though, the bill will be debated by the full Senate this week. Look out for reefer-mad bunnies roaming the Utah hills ASAP.