Your choice about drugs affects not only your body's inner environment but also the natural environment – the ecosystem all of us are supposed to be taking care of.

In the United States

• The latest locations for marijuana farms are our national and state parks. Three-fourths of the marijuana seized in California in 2003 was found on public lands.
  
  
• Federal law enforcement seized over 50 weapons from the armed guards at these surreptitious plantations, which are controlled and guarded by multi-billion dollar drug cartels from Mexico.
  
  
• Drug traffickers smuggle hundreds of pounds of agricultural supplies, herbicides, pesticides and supplies for the laborers hired to tend and guard the farms 24 hours a day.
  
  
• The workers clear the land, set booby traps and put out rat poison to kill wildlife that would harm the crop. They build open latrines and garbage dumps for their use during growing season.
  
  
• Farms are usually established next to springs and creeks for their water supply and leach hazardous chemicals into the delicate habitats there. A Forest Service special agent noted, “A lot of the creeks downstream… have absolutely nothing living in them…. There’s not even mold on the rocks.”
  
  
• Hikers, hunters and rangers have been chased away at gunpoint. A national forest officer was shot during a raid in California.

That’s just marijuana. Look at the damage caused by methamphetamine:

• The process for cooking methamphetamine produces six pounds of toxic waste, discarded in plastic bags called death bags, for every one pound of meth.
  
  
• Meth lab cleanups in Montana alone cost more than $1 million in 2002.
  
  
• Law enforcement officers and government workers have suffered lung damage from accidentally encountering death bags in trash cans at rest stops or thrown alongside hiking trails in rural areas.
  
  
• Firefighters have been injured by the chemical fumes produced by explosions of meth labs. People who live in homes where meth has been cooked can suffer from the residual chemical exposure.
  
  
• Paramedics are exposed to the hazardous chemicals used in meth production as they treat burn victims.

As the meth epidemic grows, so does the environmental impact of the toxic waste discarded in death bags by meth cookers. And it doesn’t stop there. In a remote area of the Sierra National Forest that borders Yosemite National Park, authorities found 40,000 opium poppies grown by Mexican drug cartels.

Around the World

The environmental damage caused by drug use affects not only the U.S. but also the delicate ecosystems of other countries. The hunger for illegal drugs has caused the destruction of 2.4 million hectares of tropical forest in the Andes region of South America due to the drug trade’s agricultural methods.

·          Coca plants are grown mainly by large-scale industrial growers who practice slash and burn techniques that endanger the rich biodiversity of the area.

·          These illegal drug manufacturers apply potent chemicals such as poisonous herbicides and pesticides to their crops. They discard huge amounts of gasoline, kerosene, sulfuric acid, acetone and other toxic compounds onto the land and into the waterways.

·          When the land has been exhausted or has become too poisoned by chemicals to produce, it is abandoned, and a new section of the forest is clear cut to grow crops for the drug trade.

Here are examples of the environmental suffering in two countries:

·          Peru – Ten percent of the tropical rainforest has been destroyed by illegal drug manufacture. The National Agrarian University of Peru found that “the rivers and streams of the Upper Huallaga Valley are literally flooded, year after year, with vast quantities of toxic waste and pollution. Fisheries and all forms of life are almost totally destroyed in the small streams.”

·          Colombia – Three million acres of tropical rainforest have been lost because of the drug trade. Growers dump over 370,000 tons of chemicals in the forest and 20 million liters of toxins into the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers annually. This environmental tragedy occurs in the country that contains approximately ten percent of the earth’s biodiversity.

Not only does the wildlife of the region suffer, the poor caretakers of these farms are endangered by toxic chemicals. They usually work the fields barefoot, with their children in tow. The wives of the campesinos, even the expectant or nursing mothers, often clean out the spraying equipment.