Colombia Calls Cocaine Users "Predators Of The Rain Forest"

If you're into charlie, snow, or a few lines of snort, Colombia's Vice President Francisco Santos Calderón has a message for you: your cocaine use is a "predator of the rain forest" and a serious threat to human life.

"Every user that snorts a gram of cocaine kills 4.4 square meters of rain forest," Calderón told the Huffington Post in an interview this week. According to Calderón, 300,000 hectares of tropical rain forest are destroyed each year to make way for coca plants and the industrial chemicals needed to turn them into a value-added product.

For decades Colombia has cultivated the bulk of the world's cocaine and the latest UN figures estimate the country's share of global production at more than 60 percent. The vast majority of the coke bought and sold in the US originates in Colombia, where the clearing of land for coca crops has had a devastating impact on one of world's most bio-diverse areas.

Since the election of hard-line President Alvaro Uribe in 2002, Colombia's government has stepped up efforts to tackle the trade, preventing the sale of an estimated 377 tons of cocaine and wiping about 14 billion off global coke profits, according to the Anti-Narcotics Police.

In an attempt to highlight the environmental impacts of coke use, Calderón's office launched the Shared Responsibility project, designed to encourage consumer countries to participate in the fight against coca production.

Cocaine use in the US has decreased dramatically since the peaks of the 1990s with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reporting a further drop in the number of first time users to 906,000 people in 2007 from 977,000 in 2006.

But these figures are still significant when the scale of the environmental impact is considered and as 29-year-old former user Chris from LA argues, coke use is still an integral part of the party culture in big US cities.

Chris stopped taking coke more than a year ago but at its peak, his habit had him using two to three times every week. "It's pretty easy to get hold of... it's everywhere out here," he said.

While he was using, Chris said he was casually aware of other environmental issues--he recycled and made an effort to avoid using plastic or disposable paper and polystyrene products. According to Calderón, this is typical of the average coke user, who is likely to be a young, well-educated professional with an ironic interest in the benefits of going green.

"Cocaine use requires a disposable income and during the week many users drive hybrid cars and recycle. Then, on the weekend, he or she destroys everything they believe in," Calderón said.

Colombia's government argues that coke users do more than just destroy the environment. According to Calderón they also help fuel the violent insurgencies that have resulted in the kidnapping, displacement and deaths of thousands of Colombian civilians.

The sprawling jungle in the south of Colombia's Córdoba department is one of many fluid front lines in the government's fight against narco-trafficking rebel groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The nearby town of Caucasia is home to one of the largest anti-narcotics operations in northern Colombia and the few farming families working remote patches of land in southern Córdoba are heavily involved in the cocaine trade.

The area seems devoid of the basic infrastructure usually associated with high-income crops and by air, no roads are visible. Just a few homesteads are scattered around small patches of cleared vegetation, a sign of cocaine cultivation and the inevitable presence of armed groups.

Thousands of hectares of coca are produced here, despite attempts by anti-narcotics troops to dramatically reduce both the cultivation of coca and the sale of crops to groups like the FARC.

"Illegal armed groups in Colombia are financed in large part by trafficking cocaine. These same groups terrorize the civilian population by planting landmines, kidnapping, and, in some parts of the country, committing murders," Vice President Calderón said.

Targeted killings are rare in southern Córdoba but according to Colonel Santamaria, who heads Caucasia's anti-narcotics teams, troops are engaged in "weekly low-level battles" with the FARC and a number of civilians and eradication workers have been injured by landmines and small explosions.

"Here the rebels cause many problems. People are losing their legs from mines and the FARC are earning money from taxes on the drug trade," Santamaria said.

The FARC's ability to earn an estimated $300 million a year from cocaine trafficking has led the Colombian government to accuse users of financing the group's activities, including the kidnapping of former hostage and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Despite the efforts of Colonel Santamaria's troops, the Colombian government has been unable to seize control of the trade, as farmers use increasingly remote jungle areas to cultivate cocaine crops at a rate hard to tackle with manual eradication and crop substitution efforts.

This has led Vice President Calderón to travel to a number of consumer countries, conducting interviews with reporters and urging politicians to help publicize the impacts of the coke trade and encourage the environmentally conscious to stop using.

Whether or not these efforts will be successful in Europe, where cocaine use has skyrocketed in recent years, remains to be seen but according to Chris, Calderón's "startling" statistics will not be enough to dissuade users in the US.

"Cocaine is a vain drug... and I think [knowledge of the impacts] isn't enough to stop people from using."

Comments

[Jeffreygeez]

As long as the demand is there the supply will be as well, no matter what the consequences, be it the destruction of the rain forest or otherwise. The fact is the Western World funds the terrorist movement against itself. Colombian Farc funds its terrorism with money spent by Americans and European cocaine aficionados, aka drug users. Afghan heroin is sold to Europeans and Americans ,not to Afghan citizens.

The cocaine and poppy farmers barely make enough money to live on, while the western consumer spends his disposable income on the product they sell. Trying to convince drug farmers to produce another crop is ridiculous­.Blaming them for the western worlds bad habit sis ridiculous as well. Irony at its best or rather worst.

[HeatherLeila]

I'm disgusted with most of the comments here. What about the personal responsiblity of users? That's what the VP is saying- there's a price to pay for using, it's not a victimless crime. There's no way to use cocaine responsibly; someone was always hurts in the process of bringing that cocaine to your hands. Read all my thoughts: http://heatherleila3.blogspot.com/2008/12/drugs-are-human-rights-violation.html

[DavidGoodner]

This article is complete bullshit. The reason why coca cultivation is destroying the environment is because of Plan Colombia and the chemical and manual fumigations. If we ended the war on drugs and let farmers grow coca where they wanted, they wouldn't need to keep clearing new land. But when you chemically destroy not just coca crops but also water sources, soil, and animals, then farmers are forced to clear new land to re-plant.

If Cocaine were legal or at least decriminalized there would be no environmental destruction from the trade. Its only the criminalization of it and the hyper-mili­tarization that is Plan Colombia that is causing these problems.

[qwerty1234]

This is a poorly explored article. Not once is the term 'regulation' used. To have an elected official blame the governmental mismanagement of agriculture on consumers is ridiculous. They have a product and land, they are responsible for managing it. It's even more ridiculous that the writer didn't signifigantly note this. This is another sheltered writer who went to college for 8 years and avoided the real world by playing photojournalist. There should have obviously been more criticism of the government and citizens of Columbia than criticism of the users.

[guajiro]

This "War on Drugs" is such a fraud on the people of this country. Obama would do well to eradicate that program. Here's why:
"Plan Colombia has proven to be an extremely expensive strategy for eradicating coca (see Plan Colombia: A Closer Look). Most of the industrial-sized coca plantations were fumigated in the early days of Plan Colombia. As a result, over the past two years, most of the coca in southern Colombia has been cultivated on two to three acres plots, earning individual farmers approximately $2,000 a year. Theoretically, U.S. taxpayer dollars could have paid each coca-growing peasant $40,000 dollars—enough to support a rural family for 20 years—not to grow coca. Of course, any such strategy would have avoided untold environmental damage, the displacement of thousands of families by aerial fumigation, and the subsidization of U.S. corporations to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for chemicals, helicopters, weaponry and mercenarie­s."

This country is going the way of the U.S. car manufacturer unless they stop subsidizing Corporate-America.

[tailgateshirts]

but cocaine usage is so much more fun than playing in the rainforest!!$$

[WilliamProc]

Do we believe that all Columbians have do to is grow coffee and give up coca production and everyone will be happy? The problem is that the people who live on that land are POOR! You cant feed your family and some drug lord offers you thousands of dollars for use of the land, or as is usually the case, holds a gun to your loved one's head. You really think those people are concerned about the carbon footprint or other cavilier western ideals. you think of day-to-day survival.T­hey don't care about the rain forest and none of us would either if we were in their shoes.

Cocaine usage and consumption aren't the real issues, poverty is!

[WilliamProc]

FYI-Why all this talk of cocaine prohibition? Cocaine is a legal drug! Doctors, primarily dentists use it! Pharmaceutical cocaine is very legal and manufactured by several drug companies. The fact that it is a Schedule 3 drug means that unless you're authorized to possess it, you cant store, distribute, or sell it without federal permission.

[guajiro]

Yup! I just had Lasik eye-surgery and the eyedrops used to numb the eye had cocaine in it. I wonder if the Big-Pharma wants the drug to be illegal so that only they can manufacture it.

[noamjunior]

NO - the PROHIBITION of Cocaine is destroying the rain forest-NOT its consumption
if the general -er, president of Columbia was so concerned, make coke, legal, tax it and control where it can be cultivated - of course then he would have to stop taking all that us drug war cash
so is the problem that Americans are addicted to Colombian coke
or that the Colombian Government is addicted to US cash

[comebackid]

I've noticed that if you criticize the devil too harshly Huffpo won't post it.

Way to go on the free speach!

[LoveOverGold]

Hey that land could be used for growing bananas or cattle or rosewood for really expensive guitars...

[DrC]

And another thing: It's interesting how much more angry some folks on this blog get about the destruction of the rain forest than they do about the horrifying living conditions for human beings in some parts of Latin America that result directly from continued American drug use and the oppressive, violent, and depraved regimes and gangs who are empowered by the money Americans spend to get their drugs. I'm horrified by environmental degredation, but concern about both of these topics are not mutually exclusive. Too many liberals, however, think "Nancy Reagan" every time somebody expresses concern about drug use, instead of thinking about 12 year old kids shot in the back of the head on the streets of Bogota, La Paz, Juarez, or Rio (not to mention LA and Washington, DC). Marx couldn't have written a better script of capitalist exploitation and corruption than the drug trade.

[DrC]

It's nice to finally read this statement in liberal circles. Vegetarian activists are correct that creating land for cow grazing has a huge and detrimental impact on the environment. But the production of drugs for American consumption has not only meant destruction of rain forests, but it has succeeded in decimating the quality of life across Latin America. And yet, my fellow liberals continue to persist in the notion that drug use is "counter-cultural" and therefore tolerable (when in fact, drug use couldn't be more conventional and typical American behavior). It would be nice if there was comparable outrage on the left everytime somobody snorted a line of coke as there is every time somebody eats a Big Mac. Given that marijuana is not nearly as harmful or addictive as cocaine (or alcohol, for that matter), I believe it should be legalized--which would also go far toward improving Life in Latin America, as well as depopulating our prisons currently filled with non-violent offenders.

[noamjunior]

I'm a liberal and I hate coke - but dont blame drugs for quality of life issues in Latin America. That is on US drug policy, if connected to drugs at all.

[HeatherLeila]

I'm so glad someone else has drawn this connection too: people who use illegal drugs aren't just hurting themselves. Recreational yet illegal drugs come with a price far higher than money or health or the destroyed family-life of the user; there is a trail of blood all the way down South America- from mules, to farmers forced to grow or give up their land, to kidknapping victims.

What gets me it that a lot of drug users do so thinking they're bucking the system, they wouldn't buy clothes made in a sweatshop, they wouldn't wear fur, they love to complain about the war on drugs, they may eat organic, but won't think twice about how their drug of choice really ended up their nose! Through some vulnerable person's digestive track. If Americans consumed less, they wouldn't grow it. So stop being selfish and break your habit.

[That Guy]

Of course, if ALL drugs were legal and regulated, this wouldn't be an issue. Cocaine can be easily and safely synthesized from inorganic sources. This would deny another fund raising project to criminals and terrorists, and help save the rain forest. The problem isn't with cocaine, it's with prohibition.

[noamjunior]

thank you for blaming the victims
you know if all those fattys could stop eating all that corn syrup maybe the government would stop subsidizing it and we could solve world hunger

[HeatherLeila]

What victims? Cocaine users? Consumerism is consumerism and I never said all the parallels with the beef industry aren't correct- it's just often the same people who criticize McDonald's, the fur industry, the sweatshop industry exempt themselves and their own drug habit. My point is that drugs are just another commodity, the drug industry another arm of capitalism. What victims? Coke-heads or mules? Mules have my sympathy- Americans who abuse drugs they've been told their whole lives to stay away from don't.

[heyho]

It is odd to refer to the VP of Colombia as Calderon. In Colombia people use both their father's and mother's last name. If you are going to use just one last name, use Santos.

[klandish]

Destroying the rain forest. As much as McDonald's?