Topics of Interest
Drug Abuse
Want to Save the Rainforest?
Don't Use Drugs
Paula Dobriansky
Deputy Secretary of State for Global Affairs
In recent decades, we have become increasingly aware of the dire global environmental consequences of destruction of the earth's tropical forests: shrunken habitat for animal species, lost biodiversity, more soil erosion, and fewer "carbon sinks" to absorb greenhouse gases. There are a variety of ways one can assist in arresting tropical forest destruction, such as supporting forestry conservation or enhancing markets for "rainforest friendly" products such as shade-grown coffee. Recycling is also helpful. And there is something else one can do to conserve forests and even reverse deforestation: stay away from cocaine and heroin.
The linkage between illegal drug use and tropical forest destruction may not seem obvious. Yet, to cultivate coca and avoid being detected by law enforcement, farmers need to clear fields in fragile tropical forest areas, most often by slashing and burning. The Government of Peru estimates that in that country alone, over 2.28 million hectares of rainforest have been lost to coca cultivation. According to Peru's national resources agency, Inrena, this amounts to one-quarter of all deforestation that has taken place in Peru. Meanwhile, Colombian authorities report that between 1990 and 2000, 1.34 million hectares of tropical humid forest were cut for coca and opium poppy cultivation. This area is 1.52 times the area of Yellowstone National Park, or 3.6 times the area of Colombia's Cundinamarca province. For wildlife that requires intact forest, such habitat loss has disastrous consequences.
Deforestation is only one consequence of coca and poppy cultivation. Highly toxic insecticides such as ethyl parathion and highly toxic herbicides such as paraquat (both of which are highly restricted in the United States) are used indiscriminately by coca and poppy growers in Colombia and Peru. Paraquat is highly persistent in the environment and parathion is toxic to beneficial insects and a variety of wildlife. These products are used at rates that exceed the manufacturer's recommendations by individuals with no training or personal protection. They are often stored in or near the farmers' homes or food supplies, exposing them and their families to hazardous levels of these substances.
Once the coca and opium poppy crops are harvested, coca leaves and poppy latex are mixed with more industrial chemicals, including sulfuric acid, acetone, potassium permanganate, and gasoline, to make cocaine base and heroin. The Colombian government estimates that in the year 2000, more than 357 million liters of gasoline were used for coca leaf processing; equivalent to a little over three days of gasoline consumption in the State of California. And in the middle of the forest where the processing pits and drug labs exist, you will not find toxic waste management systems; those deadly chemicals are haphazardly dumped on the land and into the streams and rivers that supply drinking water for local populations.
In the case of Colombia, the drug trade has yet another devastating environmental consequence: it provides funding for the violent activities of three illegally armed groups, all of whom are on the U.S. government's list of known terrorist organizations: the National Liberation Army, the United Self-Defense Forces and the Armed Revolutionary Front of Colombia. Illegally armed groups also regularly bomb Colombia's oil pipelines. Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol reports that since one pipeline was constructed in 1986, some 700 attacks on it have caused more than 2.5 million barrels of crude oil to spill into the environment along Colombia's northeastern border with Venezuela, roughly 10 times the amount of crude oil dumped into Price William Sound in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
Unfortunately, the United States remains the world's number one consumer of cocaine, consuming nearly 260 metric tons each year that originate in the Andes. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that Colombia is the source of a high percentage of the 13 to 18 metric tons of heroin consumed annually in the United States. A reduction in consumption of these illegal drugs in the U.S. alone would cause a drastic decline in their production in the Andes, slowing deforestation and lessening pollution of the rainforest.
Concerned citizens need to think about this the next time they and
their peers discuss how to stop global warming and save the earth's
rainforests. Truly concerned citizens also need to think about it the
next time they are tempted to snort cocaine or use heroin, even if it's
"just for fun." It's not just their own bodies they will be polluting
Washington, D.C.
January, 2003