Pubdate: Wed, 19 Nov 2008
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2008 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Jerome Taylor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?208 (Environmental Issues)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COLOMBIAN VP'S STARK MESSAGE FOR BRITAIN'S MIDDLE-CLASS DRUG USERS

'Every Time You Consume One Gram of Cocaine, You Are Destroying 4.4 
Square Metres of Colombian Rainforest'

It is the opiate of the affluent. At dinner parties across the 
country and in the VIP lounges of Britain's plushest clubs and bars, 
huddled masses of wealthy hedonists crouch over paper wraps filled 
with a crystallised tropane alkaloid known as cocaine. Tonnes of the 
"white stuff" are consumed each week.

But in the rainforests of Colombia, cocaine tells a different story. 
Take the Tayrona National Park, a tract of virgin rainforest in the 
north of the country ringed by deserted beaches, aquamarine waters 
and the towering peaks of the Sierra Nevada Santa Maria. It is still 
a beautiful place. But take a flight over the park's interior and 
soon the deadly legacy of the Western world's thirst for coke emerges.

It begins with the winding yellow mud trails carved into the heart of 
the interior that eventually give way to acres of coca plants, which 
make the cocaine. Vast areas have been burnt to make way for these 
plantations, protected by armed militias who think nothing of ringing 
their crops with landmines. The coca fields of Colombia are a human 
and environmental catastrophe ignored by the type of European 
recreational drug user who might buy Fair Trade coffee in the week 
but think nothing of snorting cocaine at the weekend.

That was the image that Colombia's Vice-President, Francisco Santos 
Calderon, wanted to plant in the minds of British cocaine users 
during a visit he made to Belfast yesterday. "Every time you consume 
one gram of cocaine you are destroying 4.4 square metres of Colombian 
rainforest," he said. "This is the message we need to get across." 
The Vice-President delivered his stark message in a speech to a drugs 
conference being held by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Although Colombia is the world's largest supplier of cocaine, its 
government has been locked in a 35-year war with the drug producers, 
supported by weapons and dollars from the United States. But it has 
had little success in its fight against this multibillion-dollar 
industry. Left-wing rebel groups, such as the Marxist-Leninist Farc 
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), and a motley collection of 
illegal right-wing paramilitaries are the main growers and 
distributors and Colombia, with the support of Western governments, 
has concentrated on attempts to stamp out the source of the cocaine 
industry, despite concerns over human rights abuses. Amnesty 
International accused the Colombian government last month of being 
"in denial" about the extra-judicial killings and torture that have 
accompanied this war.

Mr Calderon is now appealing to the environmental sensibilities of 
Britain's recreational drug users. "[Cocaine] is an environmental 
catastrophe many times the Exxon Valdez," he said, referring to the 
oil tanker that spilled millions of barrels of crude oil into Prince 
William Sound, off the Alaskan coast in 1989, which is regarded as 
one of the most destructive man-made environmental disasters ever. 
"We have seen [this] catastrophe slip under the radar of the 
environmental community."

In Colombia, the trade is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people 
every year. Fighting between government forces and the drug makers 
has displaced 300,000 Colombians - creating one of the world's worst 
internal refugee problems. The landmines - anti-personnel and 
anti-vehicle mines, as well as unexploded ordnance - that the 
militias and cartels use to protect crops from military operations 
have also made Colombia the country with one of the highest number of 
mines in the world. Survival International, which supports tribal 
people around the world, is worried that a number of indigenous 
tribes within the Amazon region have been forced to flee their forest 
as drug producers push deeper in, seeking to avoid government troops. 
The Nukak-Maku tribe, for example, lives in the eastern Amazon and 
was not exposed to outsiders until 1988; over the next decade the 
Nukak population halved to less than 500 and those who remain have 
had to flee the fighting.

But, as Mr Calderon made clear, the environmental toll is equally 
shocking. On top of the vast tracts of rainforest that are destroyed 
to make way for coca fields millions of tonnes of herbicides and 
fertilisers are washed into Colombia's rivers.

The United Nations says that 150kg of solid chemicals and 250 litres 
of liquid chemicals are used to develop just one hectare of coca 
plant. Coca leaves must also be soaked in solvents, such as acetone, 
to release their psychotropic qualities and each year 20 
millionlitres of acetone, 13 million litres of gasoline and 81,000 
litres of sulphuric acid are disposed of untreated in Colombia's 
rainforest, which produces 15 per cent of the world's oxygen.

That drug's crippling effect on places in the developed world far 
away from our homes may well be forgettable to many users, but the 
effect in Britain is equally profound. Speaking at the same 
conference yesterday, Bill Hughes, the head of the Serious Organised 
Crime Agency, said cocaine and heroin alone were costing Britain UKP 
15bn a year, through crime and the effect on health. Whether the 
casual Friday night user will listen, however, remains to be seen. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake