The negative impact of illegal drugs, drug abuse, including social problems, health problems and financial problems are well-publicised and often felt more keenly because they are close to home. But fewer people, especially those whose lifestyles embrace using illegal drugs, are inclined to view the bigger picture, part of which is the devastating effect of coca, opium and marijuana production on one of the world’s most precious resources the Amazon rainforest.
The Amazon Rainforest covers over a billion acres, covering areas in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and the Eastern Andean region of Ecuador and Peru.
This rich and precious natural resource is known as the “Lungs of our Planet”, with more than 20 percent of the world’s oxygen being produced in the Amazon Rainforest. Over half of the world’s estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests and more than 25 percent of the active ingredients found in modern cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest. Twenty percent of the globe’s fresh water is found in the Amazon Basin.
That is the good news. The bad news is that man is systematically destroying it, through, amongst other things, production of illicit drugs which is causing mass de-forestation, pollution of waterways, erosion and global climate change.
It is estimated that plantations in the Peruvian Amazon have increased sevenfold during the last 15 years, with coca plants being the largest crop under cultivation to meet the increasing demand for cocain in Europe and the USA.
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