Parts of Peru’s Amazon jungle are being cleared in order to produce cocaine. Over 3 million hectares of forest have been destroyed to grow coca, the crop used to make cocaine. Peruvian soldiers to try to stop the spread of cocaine labs, but such efforts are met with mixed results. Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo reports
From Al Jazeera TV
Cocaine production threatens Peruvian rainforest 2
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Posted 4:52 PM on 11 May 2009
by Russ Walker -
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Russ Walker is an East Coast refugee who landed in Seattle in July 2008. He’s executive editor of the site, which means he spends a lot of time trying to be optimistic about cutting CO2 emissions … and coming up with puns that work with “COP-15.”
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PermieWriter Posted 9:18 am
12 May 2009
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Tyler Durden Posted 11:27 pm
12 May 2009
Mexico, are destroying U.S. forests in order to grow marijuana? They
kill trees and other native plants, and poison the Earth with
pesticides. There is so much destruction of so much of the Earth for so many unnatural modern human things that it seems really odd that cocaine production should be singled out. Tropical rainforest destruction is worse than destruction of other ecosystems for a couple of reasons, but I seriously wonder if this is not just one of those stories to get people to ignore the real problems of the world considering how little land this likely involves.
And the moral of this story is that drugs ought to be legal. If they were, cocaine and other plants would not be grown in secret and their growing would be regulated so that it doesn't lead to the destruction of tropical rainforests and other ecosystems. People and some other animals have a natural desire to get high, and people have been using plants for that purpose for millennia. The answer is not a puritanical, police state-imposed prohibition, but instead a tolerant attitude that does not criminalize drugs. We've had a war on drugs in one form or another for a long time, and it's never worked. In fact, it always makes things much worse.
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