Drug trafficking and the corresponding ‘war on drugs’ are driving deforestation in Central America, two new reports published by Fundación Neotropica and the PRISMA Foundation think tank have found. Military efforts to tackle cocaine traffickers have instead pushed them into remote forests, where the shadowy underground economy they build has a devastating effect on the environment, the researchers said. The economic impact on the region’s protected forests is at least $215m per year, they found. The traffickers then clear forests to create hundreds of air strips to land planes full of cocaine coming from the Andes.

Learn how lessening the barriers for small farmers while raising them for large companies can help to steer legal cannabis markets in a more sustainable and equitable direction based on principles of community empowerment, social justice, fair(er) trade and sustainable development.

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The coca leaf has been a staple in Andean communities for centuries, serving as a source of nutrition, as an aide for altitude adjustment, and as an energy boost. However, despite its many benefits, coca is still widely associated with its illegal derivative, cocaine. This association has led to a prohibition on the international trade of coca, holding back the coca leaf’s potential to help countries in need. Yet, the coca leaf could be at the centre of a global crop resurgence if we just take the steps needed to free it. Coca-based organic fertilisers, developed in Colombia, are an innovative, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly alternative to synthetic versions. 

Depuis sa maison de Ketama, à 1 700 mètres d’altitude, Abdellatif Adebibe surplombe la vallée où les embruns d’iode venus de la Méditerranée se mêlent aux senteurs des cèdres. « Nous sommes ici dans le temple du kif »,présente le cultivateur de 70 ans, président de l’Association pour le développement du Rif central. A l’instar du laboratoire Pharma 5, qui, dans une étude publiée par le média marocain Le Desk, met en avant la qualité de la beldiya, sa moindre teneur en THC, son odeur et sa saveur uniques… Un label « made in Rif » ? « Made in Ketama »,préfère Abdellatif Adebibe, qui, lui, défend une « appellation bio, appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), équitable »dans la « zone historique du kif ».

Canada’s medical cannabis industry is making a push in the Senate to ban large-scale outdoor cannabis cultivation. Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Canada Council, an industry association that represents licensed producers of medical marijuana, urged senators Wednesday to prohibit large-scale outdoor cultivation in the government’s pot legalization legislation. But others have made the push for the government to open up outdoor pot cultivation to reduce the carbon footprint of growing weed indoors. “There are significant environmental costs to indoor production, including electricity usage,” he said. “Outdoor production can mitigate some of these problems and should be considered an option.”

California’s marijuana market is borrowing a page from the state’s world-famous wine industry thanks to a new law intended to help outdoor cannabis growers brand and market their products by highlighting where and how they’re produced. When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 67 on Sept. 30, the law established that any cannabis product claiming an “appellation of origin” from a California region must have been grown in the soil and with the sun from that region – in other words, without artificial light or shelter, such as a greenhouse or hoop house. California is leading the way with this legislation, and other West Coast states, including Oregon and Washington state, might take notice. Such designations can help smaller growers distinguish their cannabis.

Environmental impacts are rarely taken into account in the cannabis regulation debate. The assumption is that legal regulation would automatically reduce the negative environmental consequences of the unregulated illegal market, because authorities would compel the industry to comply with basic environmental standards. Practices in North America and the direction of the emerging regulation debate in Germany and other European countries, however, reveal a disturbing trend towards indoor cannabis cultivation. The high carbon footprint of indoor grow facilities could jeopardize policy aims to reduce energy use and to meet climate goals.

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Between 47,000 and 50,000 hectares, mainly in the Rif region, are planted with cannabis in Morocco, the National Narcotics Commission (CNS) said. Mohamed Andaloussi, the president of the Azir Association for the Protection of the Environment in Al Hoceima, recently told EFE that 90 percent of the land cultivated for cannabis is public property that farmers exploit illegally. “A large part of these public lands were forests that farmers cut down to grow cannabis despite this being an illegal activity since 1974,” Andaloussi pointed out. (See also: Moroccan police seizes 15 tons of cannabis resin in Tangier | Le trafic de cocaïne met les autorités sous pression)

Significant policy shifts have led to an unprecedented boom in medical cannabis markets, while a growing number of countries are moving towards the legal regulation of adult non-medical use. This trend is likely to bring a range of benefits. Yet there are growing concerns over the many for-profit cannabis companies from the global North that are aggressively competing to capture the licit spaces now opening in the multibillion-dollar global cannabis market. This threatens to push small-scale traditional farmers from the global South out of the emerging legal markets.

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Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found. Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle. The study’s findings vindicate conservation experts who have long argued that Colombia’s strategy to conserve the Amazon – often centered on combating coca production – has been misplaced. “We want to finally eradicate this narrative that coca is the driver of deforestation.” (See also: IDPC analysis of the UNODC World Drug Report 2022)

El pasado 20 de julio se radicó nuevamente en el Congreso un proyecto de ley que busca regular el cannabis para usos diferentes del medicinal, una propuesta que parece tener cada vez mayor ímpetu a nivel mundial. En noviembre del 2020, un proyecto de ley similar se archivó en la Cámara, sin embargo, esta vez la iniciativa aprobó su primer debate en la Comisión Primera. ¿El cannabis de uso adulto afecta negativamente la salud? ¿Si se regula aumentará el consumo entre adolescentes? El Centro de Estudios sobre Seguridad y Drogas responde a estas y otras preguntas clave relacionadas con el proyecto que cursa en la Cámara. (Véase también: Cannabis de uso adulto: análisis sobre el impacto económico y ambiental)

Many myths surround coca. Every day press accounts around the world use the word coca in their headlines, when they refer in fact to cocaine. TNI's Drugs and Democracy Team expose the myths and reality surrounding the coca leaf.

See also: Fact Sheet: Coca leaf and the UN Drugs Conventions

Legislators weary of Colombia’s whack-a-mole anti-narcotics efforts propose to stop the often violent trafficking of cocaine that has plagued the country for decades. The plan calls for the national government to take control of the drug market by purchasing coca leaf harvests and regulating cocaine sales. The challenges include cost, pushback from an international community that wants to maintain the status quo, and the potential reaction of an illegal drug empire that does not hesitate to use violence to get its way. The legislators who authored the bill, which is scheduled for congressional debate in October, insist the approach could reduce the waste of public funds, help protect Colombia’s environment and generate a better public health approach to the issue of drug consumption.

Colombia has announced it will stop using a controversial herbicide to destroy illegal plantations of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. The decision follows a warning by the World Health Organization (WHO) that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic". The product has been used in US-sponsored crop-spraying anti-narcotics programmes in South America. President Juan Manuel Santos has said Colombia will need to find other mechanisms to combat coca production. (But South Africa continues to spray cannabis fields)

Legal cannabis production in Colorado emits more greenhouse gases than the state’s coal mining industry, researchers analysing the sector’s energy use have found. The production and use of cannabis for medical or recreational reasons is now legal in several US states, which has led to a booming industry. Hailey Summers and her colleagues at Colorado State University have quantified and analysed the greenhouse gas emissions produced by cannabis growers. They found that emissions varied widely by state, from 2.3 to 5.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kilogram of dried flower produced. “The emissions that come from growing 1 ounce, depending on where it’s grown in the US, is about the same as burning 7 to 16 gallons of gasoline,” says Summers.

How can we resolve the tensions between current drug control policies and states’ human rights obligations? The international human rights framework clearly establishes that, in the event of conflicts between obligations under the UN Charter and other international agreements, human rights obligations take precedence. As legally regulated cannabis markets start to grow, now is the time to secure a legitimate place for small farmers using alternative development, human rights and fair trade principles.

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Por las 158.000 hectáreas del parque Catatumbo Barí, en Norte de Santander, transitan el jaguar, la danta y el oso de anteojos. Predominan las orquídeas, bromelias, bejucos y heliconias, además de árboles con alturas superiores a los 45 metros. Sin embargo, cada año los grupos armados ilegales arrasan con más y más hectáreas para sembrar cultivos de coca. El 2019 no fue la excepción, según el más reciente informe del Sistema Integrado de Monitoreo de Cultivos Ilícitos (Simci). La Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) analizó estas cifras y detalló en un reciente informe que detrás de este incremento hay varios factores.

L'impact de la culture du cannabis sur la biodiversité et les ressources a été au centre d'un webinaire organisé à l'initiative de l'Alliance marocaine pour le climat et le développement durable, en collaboration avec l'Union internationale pour la conservation de la nature (UICN). Tom Blickman, chargé de projet senior au Transnational Institute, un think tank d’Amsterdam, a indiqué qu’au cours des 50 dernières années, les cultivateurs de cannabis marocains ont fait preuve d’une remarquable résilience aux tentatives du gouvernement d’éradiquer ou de réduire la culture du cannabis, ainsi que d’une capacité remarquable à s’adapter aux conditions changeantes du marché international. le défi est de trouver un modèle de développement durable qui inclut la culture du cannabis au Maroc.

El cultivo masivo de cannabis en domicilios o recintos cerrados similares supone una nueva amenaza para el problema del cambio climático. Así lo indica un estudio llevado a cabo en Estados Unidos en el que se ha calculado la gran cantidad de energía -con la correspondiente emisión de gases de efecto invernadero en su generación- que se consume en los cada vez más frecuentes cultivos de cannabis en viviendas particulares, garajes, pequeños invernaderos y otros recintos cerrados.  Los resultados de este estudio sobre "las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en la producción 'indoor' de cannabis en Estados Unidos" han sido publicados (marzo de 2021) en la revista Nature Sustainability.