High? Our eco system?

A friend who visited Delhi after some years away reported the new, hip thing to do in Delhi clubs. Cocaine. Affluent men, women of the upper classes lazed around getting high, but it was the lax attitude about it that shocked her.

Cocaine is primarily a substance which stimulates the brain and is highly addicitve. I'll leave the pros and cons to the reader, but has anyone really thought about the supply chain and how it actually affects the eco system?

In fact, even the illegal cultivation of cocaine (AND ganja and other drugs) kills acres of rain forests in Costa Rica, protected national reserves world over, acres of the Amazon and supports violent, drug-cartel related crimes globally. In fact, Colombia being the 2nd largest producer of Coca saw its forest cover falling from 82% to 78% between 2002 to 2007 where as the drug crimes in Mexico just gets worse.

Danilo Villafañé, an Arhuaco indigenous leader in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta who is helping his people take back lands formerly controlled by guerrillas and cultivated by commercial coca growers.
Photos by Rhett A. Butler 2010.

The implications are frankly scary, specially in a day and age where we need out living greens to at least sustain the earth as we pollute it from one end. The question is, does a drug have to cost so much?

So the next time, someone narrates me a story about getting high in Hikka and how fun it was, I'll only be thinking how misinformed that person is. That maybe being a little less ignorant where your intoxicants come from would probably take you out of a cycle that cultivates deforestation, promotes poverty/dependency and violent crime the world over.

Circus on Video

Well this time we've got the crowds caught on camera. I'm not really sure how we can have a democracy when this is how a significant majority of the voters behave. I mean how can you have a meaningful campaign when the electorate is mostly uneducated?

I seem to recall based on some reading that the British wished to bring Democracy to Sri Lanka. At the time a few of our local politicians objected arguing that the country wasn't ready due to a lack of education throughout the island. These were defeated with the help of other local politicians. I think they were right though. Just dumping democracy isn't a good idea. Watch the video and judge for yourselves.

Have to commend the guys running the barricade though for doing their best though the mob is a little too much.