Colombian thoughts on cocaine

Here is an article from the always great Prensa Rural about the ecological effects of cocaine production. The article points out that cocaine use does not seem to be going away in the world, certainly not in Europe, where its consumption has risen lately, and not in the US, where abuse rates remain more or less stable. The author suggests that perhaps the prevalence of cocaine use could be diminished by "de-glamourizing" it, as governments and activists have done with certain success in the case of tobacco. But even this strategy seems not to be too effective for cocaine, as shown by the lack of success of a Colombian-funded ad campaign in Europe, in which the viewer is shown images of once-beautiful rainforest destroyed, and reminded that for every gram of cocaine consumed, about forty square feet of rainforest are chopped down.

So in light of the ineffectiveness of such consciousness-raising campaigns to reduce either demand for cocaine or the ecological harm done by cocaine cultivation, the article proposes that the major cocaine-producing countries (Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia) implement laws to encourage a cleaner, more responsible production of the drug. I proposed a similar idea some months ago in my article on greener production of cocaine. I even went a step further to propose a Fair Trade supply chain for cocaine, which would also take into account the social ills created by standard cocaine production. Ultimately though the problem is that if a product is illegal, as is the case for cocaine, it is difficult to regulate the way it is produced. Illicit production is by definition beyond the control of government, and governments are afraid that by recognizing and regulating an illegal trend, they would be implicitly legitimizing it.