More Reasons to Quit Cocaine: Bloodshed and Deforestation

We know that even occasional cocaine use can lead to fearsome health problems, but do you know how much really goes into making just one gram of coke? Cocaine affects far more than just its users.  If your doctor’s advice was not reason enough, read on to find out why you should quit cocaine – now.

Cocaine is a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon, particularly in areas where it is primarily cultivated – Columbia, Bolivia and Peru.  The largest, most bio-diverse rainforest on the planet, the South American Amazon is known as the ‘lungs of the Earth’ because of how crucial it is to our global oxygen supply.

Coca cultivation destroys this crucially important habitat as farmers choose the fast-growing cash crop over their traditional crops, and pesticides used to clear brush end up in water supplies of humans, animals and plants downstream.

These same farmers and their communities suffer as food prices soar and shortages of traditional staples abound.  Many low-income people from the region are economically coerced into serving as drug mules, often resulting in their arrest and even execution.

The infamous narco violence compelled by this dangerous drug trade devastates communities throughout Latin America, as was exemplified by drug traffickers’ ties to the 43 students disappeared in Ayotzinapa, Mexico last year.

If health concerns are not reason enough to quit cocaine, perhaps violence and destruction it brings upon communities and the environment is.

Read the whole story on ‘Cocaine: Reasons to Quit Besides your Health’ here.