AUSTRALIA - When a pink glow lit up the night sky over an Australian city on Wednesday (20/7/2022), many locals were astonished and asked what light was that?
One local resident Tammy Szumowski wondered if the apocalypse had arrived. "I've just been a cool, calm mom, telling the kids: 'There's nothing to worry about,'" she told the BBC.
"But in my head I was like, what the hell is that?," he said.
It turned out that upon investigation, the light came from a marijuana field outside the town of Mildura, in northern Victoria.
But like the other dumbfounded locals, Szumowski's thoughts initially went elsewhere. Is it an alien invasion? Or an asteroid?
"Mum is on the phone and Dad is in the background saying: 'I better hurry up and have my tea because the world is going to end,'" she said.
"And Mom was like: 'What's the point of drinking your tea when the world ends?
Szumowski said they were also "laughing". Despite the initial panic, he was struck by the beauty of the light show.
"I think that's great - they should do it more often," he said.
Another local, Nikea Champion, first thought it was a very bright red Moon - before realizing that the light was coming from the ground.
"All these end-of-the-world scenarios went through my head," he told the BBC.
"I had a big Stranger Things moment - I was like, Vecna? Was that you?" he said, referring to the villain from the TV series.
"I laughed out loud it could have been something a lot cooler, but it's basically just medical marijuana that makes that glow," he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the cannabis manufacturer Cann Group revealed on Wednesday (20/7/2022) they are not working,
But because it was an overcast night, the lights created a "steroid sunset" that could be seen for almost an hour from the facility.
As is known, medicinal marijuana was legalized in Australia in 2016, but recreational use of the drug is prohibited.
Since then, around 260,000 prescriptions have been approved by Australian regulators for various ailments.
According to data from the Australian Department of Health, the most common reason for the prescription was chronic pain, followed by anxiety and sleep disturbances.
The number of approved prescriptions has doubled since 2019, with the majority of applications coming from the state of Queensland. But possession charges remain high, with 71,151 people prosecuted for marijuana-related crimes in 2018-2019.
There are several cannabis growing facilities and their location is strictly confidential for security reasons.
A reddish light is used to help plants grow. Usually, the blackout curtain falls at dusk.
There has been steady growth in the number of states that have legalized the use of marijuana in some form since the turn of the millennium.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States (USA), about 38 states have legalized the use of medical marijuana and about 48 million people used the drug in the US in 2019.
It is also available for those with certain medical conditions in a number of European Union countries, including France, Belgium and Ireland, as well as in New Zealand.
In some countries such as Canada, possession and recreational use of marijuana is also legal.
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