A ground-breaking report from the International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice brings together evidence that reveals how the system of drug prohibition – the so called war on drugs – is undermining climate action.
Read our report: Revealing the Missing Link to Climate Justice: Drug Policy
International drug policies are driving environmental destruction, violence and organised crime in many countries with hugely valuable and threatened ecosystems- including the Amazon and other tropical forests.
The report by a coalition of scientists, academics and activists from all over the world (currently co-ordinated by Health Poverty Action) outlines the key ways in which drug policy impedes climate justice.
Prohibiting drugs pushes their production and trafficking into remote and vital areas of biodiversity, where profits from the trade are reinvested into other environmentally harmful activities like illegal mining, land grabbing and logging.
Most importantly prohibition has empowered and enriched organised, violent criminal groups. It has created shadow economy, powerful enough to destabilise whole countries, leaving officials to legislate in the interests of organised crime rather than people and planet.
At the report’s core is a plea to the environmental movement to take on board one crucial idea:
Drug prohibition is a key driver of organised crime, corruption and state capture in ecologically fragile regions. Addressing the climate emergency requires urgent, coordinated action by the environmental and drug policy movements, to replace prohibition with regulation that supports people and planet.
Find out how the environmental and drug policy movements can work together to build drug polices that support environmental justice.
Read the report
