Your forest on drugs: America's cocaine habit destroys national parks Blogs Scientific American Community

Your forest on drugs: America's cocaine habit destroys national parks Blogs Scientific American Community:

'It is time for consumers in the U.S. to own up to the results and impacts of their activities,' McNab says. 'This is my forest on drugs.'

Mr. McNab, you are wrong.

The ones who have to own up to the results and impacts of their activities are not the millions of drug users in the United States. Rather, it is those in power, our leaders and decision makers, who should do so. It is they who create the conditions leading to destruction of the forests. It is they who, by refusing to place the burden of drug use squarely where it belongs - on the shoulders of drug users - who need to own up to the failure of their approach to achieving the impossible goal they champion.

While it is true that if there were no drug users there would be no clandestine landing strips, herbicide spraying and so on, it is also true that expecting drug users to stop using drugs because of damage to the forests, or for any other reason, is foolish and worse. Drug users will get their drugs, whether from from current sources tied to forest destruction, or from legal sources under which such devastation would not occur. They will get their drugs, so which approach to the problem makes more sense, devastating the forests or letting the druggies have what they want?

A new ethic is required regarding the problem of drugs. Prohibition and the War on Drugs represent, define, failure and stupidity. So you go on defending wildlife if you want to, but please reconsider your stance on the drug problem.