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Drugs are illegal in most countries. Nevertheless, the drug business has a huge scale, which means that it cannot but affect the environment. Understanding exactly how
The carbon footprint of marijuana
Marijuana is the most popular drug in the world. According to the UN, 192 million people use it. To grow marijuana, you need a whole infrastructure – and therefore a lot of electricity. Swansea University scientists estimate that in the US, cannabis production accounts for 1% of the country’s total energy consumption.
Marijuana produces 16,5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is comparable to the annual emissions of 3 million cars.
In addition, marijuana needs noticeably more water to grow than, for example, tomatoes. So, for example, during the dry season in California, where marijuana is grown in large quantities, spending on marijuana exacerbates water shortages. According to scientists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, its illegal cultivation in the open air has reduced the water level in some streams by a quarter.
Marijuana is already legalized in whole or in part in many countries. The first was Uruguay. The law of December 10, 2013 introduced a state monopoly on the sale of marijuana. Such measures can reduce criminal activity, but they can also increase drug consumption – accordingly, the scale of production and the expenditure of resources will increase.
Coca Plantations and Rainforests
Approximately 19 million people in the world use cocaine. Most of the coca plant – its main component – is produced in Latin America. Colombia produced a record 2018 tons of cocaine in 1, according to a UN report. Since 120, drug cartels have cleared over 2001 sq. km of territory (for comparison, the area of Moscow together with New Moscow is 3 sq. km).
The Colombian government tried to destroy these crops. To do this, the planes sprayed the plantations with a highly concentrated herbicide glyphosate. But according to Elizabeth Telman, a geographer at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York, the destruction of the plantations had no effect and was even counterproductive, because herbicides not only harm coca crops, but also destroy neighboring forests and farmers’ lands. In 2020, Paulo Sandoval, a geographer at the University of Oregon in the US, conducted fresh research to see if these measures had positive results. He found that in the Columbian Amazon, 500 sq. km of land is still occupied by coca.
At the same time, half of these plantations are located on the territory of nature reserves, where there are many rare species of plants and animals.
Synthetics and river pollution
Ecstasy and amphetamines are the most popular synthetic drugs. At the same time, the production of 1 kg of MDMA leaves behind 10 kg of toxic waste, and the production of 1 kg of amphetamines already leaves 30 kg.
Toxic wastes such as sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid and acetone must be disposed of as hazardous using protective suits. But because of the illegality of drug production, no one follows these rules. According to estimates by the Dutch Institute for Water Research KWR, in 2017, about 7 thousand tons of these substances were either dumped somewhere in barrels or leaked into the ground and rivers.
Opium and subsidence
In its annual World Drug Report, the UN reports that the area under opium cultivation in the world is comparable to 337 football fields.
Afghanistan has 84% of its world production. If in the 1990s there was nothing but a desert in the south-west of the country, then in just ten years it turned green and turned into flowering poppy fields. To extract water and irrigate plantations, tens of thousands of solar-powered water pumps have been installed there, which drill wells over a hundred meters deep.
If you pump out such an amount of liquid, the level of groundwater decreases. Thus begins a slow and dangerous geological process – the subsidence (lowering) of the earth. What happens: when the moisture leaves, a void forms deep underground, due to which at some point the ceiling of this space cannot withstand the pressure of gravity from above and falls through.
The scale of the impending disaster is described in a report by socioeconomist David Mansfield. It turns out that the region’s groundwater drops by 3 m annually. In addition, he warns, the time may soon come when, due to lack of water, agricultural production in the region will be impossible.
Drug trafficking and ecological balance
Transporting, storing and distributing illegal substances has a huge impact on the environment, says Kendra McSweeney, a conservationist at Ohio University. In 2011, she traveled to Honduras, where she was struck by the extent and speed of deforestation in protected areas. The highest rates were in parts of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, especially in the Caribbean lowlands.
Why in these places? Because it’s the perfect route from South America, where drugs are produced, to North America, where they are consumed. To organize drug trafficking, you need runways for planes and roads for cars – that’s what forests are cut down for. This led, for example, to the fact that in 2011 UNESCO had to include the Río Platano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras on the “List of World Heritage in Danger”.
Drug addiction and poisoning of water systems
After use, some of the drugs are excreted from the body. When people relieve themselves wherever they have to, toxic substances enter directly into the water and soil. When hundreds of thousands of people do it, like during the big Glastonbury music festival, for example, the damage is even greater.
Scientists at Bangor University in the UK conducted special studies. They took water samples from the Whitelake River before, during and after the festival and found levels of drugs so high that they could pose a danger to aquatic life – for example, the European eels Anguilla anguilla, which have been included in the Red Book since 2008. Previous research from 2018 confirms that cocaine in water can cause acne to become hyperactive, with muscle wasting, gill failure and hormonal changes.
In this regard, the organizers of Glastonbury decided to launch a campaign that should convince visitors to use the toilets. In addition, the researchers suggested growing reed beds on the festival grounds. It is a natural ecosystem of plants, soil and living organisms for additional wastewater treatment. In 2020 and 2021, the festival did not take place due to the pandemic, so the effect of these measures cannot yet be assessed.