Feeling The Heat?

You’ve probably heard the news by now that drugs are bad for your health, right?  But did you ever stop to think about what the illegal drug trade does to the environment?  Demand for illegal drugs destroys countless species of animals and plants, pollutes soil and waterways, and promotes deforestation around the world.

And I know I sound like your 11th grade Health teacher, but if you or someone you know is taking drugs, its time to get them to a drug treatment center.  Their lives and the lives of everyone on this planet depend upon it.  Here’s why:

Growing illegal drugs like marijuana destroys habitat for wildlife and pollutes the environment with arsenic-based pesticides, toxic fertilizers, and other chemical runoff.  Illegal drugs that are produced in a lab, like methamphetamine, are equally damaging as they create soil and water contamination that threatens fish and wildlife ecosystems.  For each pound of “meth” produced, five to six pounds of hazardous waste are generated and released into the environment.  This waste contains toxins such as lye, red phosphorus and hydriodic acid.

And probably the most damaging of all is the production of cocaine which has single-handedly been responsible for the destruction of almost 6 million acres of fragile tropical forest over the past 20 years in the Andean region of South America.  This area, with its abundance of plant and wildlife is easily one of the planet’s most valuable ecosystems.  In Colombia (a country which contains roughly 10 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity) 3 million acres of tropical rain forest have been devastated by the production of cocaine.  The loss of rainforests contributes to global warming and destroys the habitat that countless species depend upon to survive.

Illegal drugs are a tragedy.  They destroy human lives just as swiftly as they destroy the environment. So if someone you love won’t get addiction treatment or find a drug rehab program for themselves, maybe they’ll do it for the planet (or for the endangered Andean flamingo).  It’s worth a try, right?