The full reach of addiction

A look at how addictive substances are damaging the environment

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Humankind’s relationship with psychoactive substances can be traced back thousands of years to religious trances induced by specific plants and fungai. But some substances are more addictive than others, and opium, caffeine and nicotine have become commonplace, in some senses socially acceptable, vices.

We know addiction can wreak havoc on the body and unravel the very fabric of an individual’s life, but the damage extends beyond the individual lives. The cultivation of many of the world’s most addictive substances, combined with a growing global population and demand, is damaging the environment and reducing biodiversity across the planet.

“Typically, we think of people losing relationships with friends and family and also the physical and mental damage that can occur, but there are larger things going on in the world,” says Garrett Graff, online content manager for Steps to Recovery, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in Levittown, Penn. The group recently assembled an online resource on the environmental impact of human addiction using academic studies from government institutes, scientific journals and American universities.

“We’re trying to promote kind of an information-first way to help people, not only just to deal with their addictions, but also the effects that go outside of what’s typically thought of with addiction,” says Graff.

Graff offers opium as an example. Myanmar (also known as Burma) is the world’s second biggest producer of opium, supplying the U.S. with an estimated 50 percent of its heroin. While the Myanmar government laid out plans to end drug production in the country by 2014, conflicts and the falling price of other crops pushed northern farmers to dedicate more land to poppies. The deforestation to create more space for poppy fields has increased soil erosion, and in some cases forests were burned to clear land, generating carbon dioxide in the process.

And heroin isn’t the only addictive product derived from the milky fluid from the opium poppy. Opioid pain relievers, such as oxycondone, hydrocodone and morphine, have found their way into American recreational drug culture. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that drug overdose death rates in the United States have more than tripled since 1990, with opioid pain relievers playing a significant role.

“These drugs were involved in 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, more than cocaine and heroin combined,” writes the CDC.

As for cocaine, virtually all coca comes from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. While the latest World Drug Report from the United Nations indicates that overall global availability of cocaine has fallen, coca-producing countries like Colombia have endured significant environmental damage from decades of intensive coca cultivation.

Colombia has more than 60 million hectares of forest, accounting for nearly 59 percent of its land area, according to the U.N.’s Global Forest Resource Assessment. The dense, tropical forests of South America are one of the world’s largest carbon “sinks,” where trees capture and store carbon dioxide. But between 2000 and 2005, the U.N. estimated that Colombia lost an average of 47,000 hectares of forests each year — a total of 235,000 hectares. The exact amount of loss due to increases in coca bush cultivation is complicated to pinpoint (U.N. and U.S. estimates vary in some years), but 2012 estimates from the U.N. show 48,000 hectares of land dedicated to coca cultivation, down 25 percent from 2011.

A drop in coca cultivation is positive thing for Colombia, but a 2011 study lead by ecologist Liliana M. Dávalos concluded that while coca plantations make up only a small part of deforestation, they drive deforestation in remote, often pristine regions that might otherwise be left alone. Coca plantations have a tendency to arise in areas that are economically depressed, and deforestation for coca leads to further clearing for other, perfectly legal crops.

Simply, “the amount of coca around you,” Dávalos said to National Geographic, “the more forest you’re likely to lose — the sheer amount of coca in the vicinity has an effect.”

The loss of forests also threatens Colombia’s biodiversity (one of the most diverse in the world), with native species like harpy eagles and tapirs at risk of extinction, and Colombian tarantulas, several species of orchids and magnolias, and insects like the Titanus giganteus beetle each suffering different levels of threat due to loss of forests.

On the more socially acceptable side of addiction is coffee (also a staple crop for many South American countires). Physiologically, science is saying the world’s growing obsession with coffee isn’t such a bad thing. Recent peerreviewed studies link moderate to heavy coffee consumption to notable health benefits, from a reduction in the risk of developing a number of cancers to its ability to stave off full-blown Alzheimer’s disease.

But environmentally, the global rise in the popularity of coffee has lead to damaging changes in its cultivation. Traditionally, coffee plants were grown under the shade of other native forest trees, providing ample habitat for birds, attracting pollinators, and creating a system of roots that could stabilize soil during heavy rains. Annual pruning made room for corn and beans, as well.

But coffee plantations began to make the move toward monoculture in order to meet demand, replacing shade-loving plants with ones that could withstand full sunlight. A 2014 study from the University of Texas at Austin found that while the global production of shade grown coffee has increased since 1996, the area of land used for non-shade varieties is increasing at a much faster rate.

“The paradox is that there is greater public interest than ever in environmentally friendly coffee, but where coffee production is expanding across the globe, it tends to be very intensive,” lead author Shalene Jha said in a press release.

“We were surprised that despite two decades of growth in public awareness of where coffee comes from and the different ways to manage it for biodiversity, shade grown coffee only seems to be grown in a few regions,” Jha said. “The shifts aren’t what we would expect based on what we see on the shelves in the U.S.”

While Graff admits the Steps to Recovery guide is intended purely to encourage awareness, he says he hopes people walk away from it thinking about how involved the nature of addiction truly is.

“It’s more involved than just filling up your coffee maker and having a cup of coffee or just having a cigarette,” Graff says. “There are millions of … acres of land designated to these crops, and we hope people can be a little more proactive in the choices they make.”

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