There's new weapon in the war on drugs: eco-guilt. Every gram of cocaine snorted destroys four square meters of rainforest, Francisco Santos Calderon, Colombia's vice president, told British police officers on Wednesday. Santos launched the "Shared Responsibility" campaign in London in May. John P. Walters, the United States' "drug czar," said in 2002 that Columbia has lost roughly 3 million acres of rainforest, and cocaine processors release more than 370,000 tons of chemicals into the fragile ecosystem every year. Since illegal growers are unlikely to switch to organic, shade-grown, fairly-traded cocaine, it's fair to say that blow is no friend of the earth.
It's no friend of the earth... and no friend of the people either.
It's insidious destruction of the earth mirrors it's effect on users lives.
Posted by: Dog Gifts | November 20, 2008 at 02:56 PM
You're wrong. Coca is a friend of the earth and a friend of the people, and has been used safely for generations upon generations.
It's the drug war that is the enemy.
It was prohibition that encouraged the development of cocaine from the coca plant to begin with.
It's prohibition that makes the drug obscenely profitable to criminals in the black market, who then do whatever necessary, regardless of the environmental cost, to keep those profits coming.
It's prohibition that sprays the crops with deadly chemicals that travel into the water. And it's prohibition that drives the criminals deeper into the forest to make their profits, destroying the environment as they go.
With a heavily regulated market, you'd take the profit from the criminals and stop the environmental destruction.
The U.S. and Colombian governments want to keep fighting their drug war -- it gives them immense budgets and power. And they'd be thrilled to co-opt the environmental movement into signing on to their destruction.
Posted by: Pete Guither | November 23, 2008 at 07:28 PM