From the rainforests of South America to the jungles of Southeast Asia and forests of West Africa, the equatorial belt holds some of Earth’s largest carbon sinks & a rich diversity of life. It is also the heart of global drug production and trafficking routes.
For over 50 years, the global ‘war on drugs’ has failed to curb use, instead fuelling a trillion-dollar underground economy controlled by organized crime and devastating ecologically-critical territories.
The drug and ecological crises are inextricably tied, yet international efforts remain disconnected. Addressing one without the other will leave climate mitigation, adaptation, and justice incomplete.
THE MISSING LINK:
PROHIBITION & THE CLIMATE CRISIS
PROHIBITION UNDERMINES CLIMATE JUSTICE EFFORTS
Decades of prohibitionist policy anchored in racism, criminalization, militarization and forced eradication have failed to stem the flow of illegal drugs or dismantle the financial power of organized crime. Instead, the war on drugs is, in reality, a war on people and the planet:
Fuelling deforestation, biodiversity loss, and violence in ecologically fragile territories
Dispossessing Indigenous Peoples and smallholder farmers of their lands and harming vulnerable communities across critical regions of global biodiversity
Feeding an unregulated, multi-billion-dollar market that undermines democracy, fuels extractivism, and sabotages climate resilience efforts
Expanding mass incarceration as a tool of oppression and suppression against those whose lived realities are tied with prohibited plants
Driving disproportionate militarization in predominantly Indigenous and marginalized communities
RETHINKING DRUG POLICY
As a coalition, we are calling for legal, regulated bio-economies that embed ecological rights; remain within planetary boundaries; respect human rights and Indigenous Self-Determination; prevent corporate monopolization, & prioritize reparative justice.
We collaborate internationally, centering the lived experience of those on the frontlines of the war on drugs. Our work hinges on developing community-led regulatory models in the Global Majority; at the same time, we are pushing the Global North to end its silence, take responsibility and stop risking the lives of frontline land defenders.