Colombia oil pipeline attack causes environmental damage -Ecopetrol | Reuters The price we pay to keep our cocaine flowing ....... Often one thinks of jungle rainforest destruction as a bulldozer clearing land for crop use .... even if the crop goes to drug cartel profits. Needing the cheapest source of gasoline to refine your cocaine somewhere within 100's of miles of remote/dense jungles? Tap into a crude pipeline & don't worry about spillage consequences. Apparently stolen crude isn't that hard to refine into low grade gasoline which creates another toxic stew in immediate areas where the refining is done for drug cartels. Then the military comes along and blows these areas up. The fly-by-night refinery creation / destruction may create a a mile wide dead zone that easily leaches into nearby water sources. Refinery operators & Coca farmers got to feed their kids - right? At least we captured Escobar?(sigh) .
Certainly, drug cartels are bad. Often lost in the equation are the drug users who keep this whole thing going. Drug users hurt a lot more people than just themselves and contribute to a very terrible network of individuals who cater to their self-inflicted wants and needs. Sometimes lost in the equation is their lust for a high also inflicts damage on the natural world. But, even as we are discussing this topic more areas in the US are decimalizing marijuana. Would be interesting to hear a drug cartels take on America removing the stigma from yet another drug- one that some are convinced is a gateway to more serious drug abuse. And yes I consider alcohol a drug and don't drink myself for health reasons and actually live in an area where it was illegal to sell liquor for quite some time-unfortunately this was recently repealed. Also realize that socially speaking my thoughts on this matter are a minority opinion in our society
Many of the drug users need treatment and support. The network of dangerous individuals exist because the drug is illegal. Legal marijuana comes from a regulated source. New Jersey requires it to be grown in state. Decriminalization with treatment support is an effective way of reducing drug use. Portugal decriminalized everything in 2001, and now has one of the lowest drug use rates in Europe. Overdose deaths have dropped around ten fold, and cases of HIV and hepatitis have dropped among users. https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight
