Experts alarmed by toxic wastes from US marijuana farms

Weaverville, California

POLLUTION from illegal marijuana farms deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the hospital.

The volume of banned or restricted pesticides and illegally applied fertilisers in the woods dwarfs estimates by the US Forest Service in 2014, when a top enforcement official testified that the pollution was threatening forest land in California and other states.