Rainforests and Heroin; Two Addictions We Can’t Kick

25 years ago I was writing a report about the advanced awareness about rainforest depletion and the promises being made and implemented worldwide to reduce the destruction of that habitat. For a time gains were being made and destruction was decelerating. There were international agreements and progressive movements and in many cases countries were being compensated with creative payments for conservation reserves and easements.

Fast forward to today and the pressure on tropical countries for resources for cattle grazing, palm oil plantations, and other extractive practices once again has rainforests in a destructive spiral. In addition to exacerbating climate change it is eliminating thousands of yet undiscovered species. Even worse are the local communities are impacted, workers exploited, and toxic practices wipe out communal living with little in the way of long-term or sustainable development.

In a similar vein, back in the 1980s heroin use was decreasing. The popular explosion of the drug in the 1970s was finally being tempered with the awareness of the terrible harm, danger, and punishing physical nature of the opiate. It seemed like Gen X generation knew enough to steer clear and that heroin use was nearly extinguished. Fast forward to the pharmaceutical revolution in U.S. capitalism and drug corporations have literally inserted heroin back into the bodies of the U.S. populace. Criminal rackets like Perdue Pharm have pushed corrupt doctors into prescription anarchy which has led to over 40,000 overdose deaths yearly in the U.S. alone. Now opioids are more epidemic than ever with no change in sight.

The more things change, the more things stay the same, until we are finally tired of a system that programmatically exploits our planet and our bodies.

Peace on the STEEM blockchain; @ClumsySilverDad