The U.S. dollar appears to be the world’s most coked-out currency, which I guess makes us the world’s most coked-out country. Aside from the socioeconomic problems associated with illegal drugs, such as addiction, destitution, maltreatment of the producers, and the waste of government resources on treating and fighting drug use and trafficking – there are negative environmental impacts as well.

The cultivation of crops such as coca and poppy perpetuates “three primary environmental consequences [including] deforestation and the destruction of the habitat, soil erosion, and pollution of both air and water [and] the processing of the raw drug crops into their refined forms also has a destructive environmental consequence.”

Pharmaceutical drugs are detrimental to the environment as well, and I believe a lot of pharmaceutical drug use is unnecessary.  Antibiotics, estrogen, and other substances flow from the landscape or wastewater treatment plants into aquatic environments where they interact with the natural environment.  These pharmaceutical substances in addition to other anthropogenic substances like fertilizers cause problems such as amphibian malformations and inter-sex fish.

The remedies are simple for both issues, but they are often hard to implement (stop the illegal drug trade or lower the demand for illegal drugs and make wastewater plants update their facilities to remove pharmaceutical substances), because changing behaviors requires not just money but awareness and the will to do so.  Not everyone is aware how illegal drugs can cause environmental degradation.  It’s a poorly covered subject.  For those individuals that just don’t know or can’t make the connections, that’s why I blog – to build awareness.  From The Register:

The production of a gram of cocaine means the destruction of four square metres of Colombian forest, they said, raising the question of which supermodels, popstars and city types should be lined up with hummer drivers and big game hunters in the environmental most-wanted stakes.

Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the planet, and also the biggest cocaine producer. Bad combination.

Cocaine production is a threat to environment is all its stages, said Liliana Davalos, lecturer in Molecular Ecology at the Open University, UK. The first step of the cycle is the destruction of forest to plant coca. Every year, 100 thousand hectares of Colombian forest is destroyed for this end. The plantations also use tons of herbicides that are forbidden in many other countries. Since the UK is one of the world’s largest consumption markets for cocaine, it makes concerns about organic tomatoes and pesticides seem futile.

Then, the coca leaves must be soaked in solvents to release their psychotropic substances. Every year, 20 million litres of acetone, 13 million litres of gasoline and 81 thousand litres of sulphuric acid are used in this process and then thrown away, untreated, in rivers and water streams.

Transporting the product demands the clearing of more forests for landing strips, preferably in national parks and conservation areas. “These areas belong to the Government, so no owner can be held liable for the illegal activities,” Davalos points out.

Finally, the Colombian government’s efforts to eradicate the plantations only serve to exacerbate the situation. They use planes to spray herbicides over coca plantations, with predictably gruesome consequences for insects, amphibians and other plants in the area. Growers then move to other areas, clear the native vegetation and start all over again.

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Coffee from shade trees cultivation farms, where the bushes are grown in the shadow of native taller trees, is a much more eco-friendly option. “Biodiversity in these plantations is almost as high as in primary forests,” said botanist Sandy Knapp from the Natural History Museum.

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On the Net: Drugs and the Environment: How do these drugs harm the environment: Marijuana, marijuana and cocaine
On the Net: International Conflict and the Environment: Cocaine