The Global Cost of the War on Drugs: Deforestation, Violence, and Failure

In addition to domestic problems, American drug policy has created more problems around the world. The War on Drugs and America are not only wreaking havoc upon itself but also on other countries as well. To stop the flow of drugs into America, the government uses military operations to unsuccessfully stop the growing and distribution of drugs. In John Stossel’s special, he explains the following.

"The Clinton administration had a plan, it was called ‘Plan Columbia.’” They persuade cocoa farmers to stop growing cocoa, to grow banana and sugar can instead. How? Well they use a carrot and a stick. The carrot would be that they pay them something, give them some farm instruments, the stick would be, if they didn’t stop growing cocoa we’d spray their fields." 

Selling cocaine and growing cocoa in Colombia is illegal. Farmers know that it’s illegal and that some Americans use their product. So why do they still grow cocoa? “For me and any other peasant in the region, it’s impossible to substitute what we make growing cocoa,” a Colombian cocoa farmer replies in Stossel’s report. 

The farmers in Colombia break the law and grow cocoa for the same reasons Americans sell drugs: because they don’t have anything left to lose. To them, growing cocoa is not a moral issue but a necessity for survival. No crop can replace what cocoa provides. 

To stop the non-compliant farmers, America sprays farmers’ cocoa fields with herbicides that kill not only the cocoa plants but also other plants as well. The problem is that these herbicides kill important vegetation for a balanced ecosystem. The chemicals kill wild plants and animals, contaminate the environment, and have negative effects on the individuals who work in the fields. “Peasants have come to hate the planes,” and America as well.

Many farmers grow cocoa deep into the Amazon Rain Forest to avoid being found or having their fields sprayed by the American planes. To get their product (large bags of cocoa powder) to market, they must saddle a donkey or two and walk them through miles of forest and roads to reach the market. This would be impossible to do with bananas or any other fruit or vegetable. Growing legal crops often does not produce the needed capital to survive, and strictly because of cocaine’s illegality that farmers get so much money for growing it. 

One of the largest problems is that after the American military sprays the cocoa fields, farmers do not stop the activity. They simply etch out another notch in the Amazon Rainforest and grow there. After a while, those fields will be sprayed as well. This creates a deadly cycle of deforestation and environmental degradation. 

Still, just like in America, which busts individual dealers, leaving the entire drug hierarchy in place, every time the government stops a farm from growing cocoa, it just makes it more profitable for those who do grow it. 

In fact, the Bush administration admits “that after spraying, the amount of cocoa cultivation increased. Increased by 25 percent last year, says the C.I.A.”  The tactics being used by America to fight the War on Drugs have only increased the use, cultivation, and distribution of both foreign and domestic. American citizens are paying billions in tax dollars so that drug use, abuse, cultivation, and trafficking can become more widely used, spread further, and become more profitable. 

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