the beautiful snow has a huge price

From the BBC, courtesy of the Grist: Where There's Coke, There's Ire Colombian vice prez chides cocaine users for rainforest destruction Posted at 10:16 AM on 18 Nov 2008 Cocaine users get no love from Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon, who speechified to police officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday: "Colombia has lost more than [5 million acres] of rainforest in the last 15 years to plant coca. If you snort a gram of cocaine you are destroying [43 square feet] of pristine rainforest. That rainforest is not just Colombian. It belongs to all of us who live on this planet, so we should all be worried about it." source: BBC News It is time that drug users begin to think of what the cost is for their luxury. Untaxed, illegal economies in underdeveloped countries spring up because of drug consumption in developed countries. The toll to the citizens and the ecology of those drug-producing countries is great but drug users remain ignorant of the effect their consumption has in other parts of the world far away. So the next time you snort or toke, if it's not homegrown you might consider that the price you paid is only a fraction of the cost.