By: Andrew Cheng

On Wednesday, July 26th, a mysterious pink color illuminated the night sky above the Australian town of Mildura. This bizarre incident makes people think of it as an invasion of aliens, misplaced northern lights, or some solar flare.

“I was just like, ‘What the hell is that?’ It is very bizarre, this huge pink light in the sky,” she said. “I’m trying not to freak out because I’ve got my girls in the car,” said Tammy Szumowski, a resident.

A lawmaker representing the area in Australia’s Parliament, Anne Webster, said, “I was driving home, and it was dark, and I noticed a very unusual, quite large pink glow. I thought that was very strange. My first thought was there having to be a logical reason for this.”

As it turns out, marijuana testing equipment produced the pink glow. During one of the testing sessions, the LED test light accidentally spread in a unique manner, which reflected off the cloudy night sky to create an eerie glow. The equipment accident both impressed and shocked the town of roughly 56,000 residents.

However, in 2016, marijuana has already been accepted by the law as medication, which allows people to plant, study, and produce marijuana. Up to today, there are more than 70,000 Australians requesting medicinal marijuana. In 2021 this type of business had paid 160 million dollars of profit. Marijuana is used among Australians primarily for pain, anxiety, and sleep problems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Frontiers of Pharmacology.

Overall, the incident of the pink sky has reminded more people to pay attention to the drug problems in Australia.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/23/australia-mildura-medical-marijuana-pink-sky/