This October was the Conference of the Parties (COP) 16 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, which I attended with the International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice to promote the Coalition’s report, “Revealing the Missing Link to Climate Justice: Drug Policy”.
As a Los Angeles born, mixed-race person of Guatemalan and Indigenous descent, I also attended the conference to cultivate strategic alliances with those working in Indigenous Rights and environmental justice in global drug policy. Until recently, the environmental impacts of the global drug economy had been absent from international treaty and negotiations forums, like the United Nations, COP, and others. This is a critical gap that is neglecting to connect drug policy reform to developing safeguards for nature and biodiversity.
For years, diverse communities around the world have denounced the failures of the global war on drugs, particularly in how it generates and exacerbates social and public health crises over multiple generations. However, little was known or mentioned on how the UN-led drug war was also contributing to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change – not to mention deadly violence for Indigenous communities.
No climate justice without drug policy reform
The Coalition’s report highlights how the current enforcement and punitive approaches in drug policies play a significant role in causing environmental devastation in the world’s most critical forest ecosystems, posing a serious threat to achieving global climate justice. Despite this, reforming drug policies is absent from the global climate negotiations agenda, as well as the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) Agenda.
Our Coalition was formed to build a bridge between the global drug policy reform and climate justice movements, so that their strategies are mutually informed, responsive, and lead to integrated reforms. The objectives of securing land and Indigenous rights, achieving strong climate governance, protecting biodiversity, and ending deforestation will be limited in their reach without robust engagement from the Environmental Sector on the role of drug prohibition.
We believe the necessity for this cross-pollination of global movements is urgent and would effectively advance planetary health and sustainable developments.
Prioritising drug policy progress in international discussions
Within the UN bodies dealing with global drug policy and transnational organised crime, like the Commission of Narcotic Drugs (CND), the Commission on Criminal Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), as well as the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Indigenous rights and climate justice have historically been deprioritised. It is crucial for these commissions to provide a permanent platform for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), environmental land defenders, and climate activists to offer their testimonies on the drug war’s environmental impacts. Their evidence is essential to develop a global health strategy rooted in demilitarisation, human rights, and ecologically sound responses to global drug industries.
Under Gustavo Petro’s Presidency, the theme “Paz con la naturaleza” (“peace with nature”) was chosen for COP16 to inspire international dialogue and cooperation on the urgent mission of transitioning away from a global state of militarised, structural, and industrial plunder of the environment. This international meeting occurred just days after Petro declared the state’s intention to buy coca crops from cultivators to ensure they have financial means to sustain themselves while the Government works to build local infrastructure and integrate them into legal economies. This mission reiterates the President’s vision to transition Colombia’s illicit industries into legal ones, through crop substitution, industry and local development.
At COP16, the Coalition led a panel discussion to highlight the implications of the coca leaf’s critical review by the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) and recommendations on its schedule status. The event took place at Casa de Pacifica, a space sponsored by Colombia’s Office of the Peace Commissioner Counselor that hosted critical dialogues on the relationships between global drug prohibition, Indigenous Rights, ancestral traditional practices, peacebuilding, environmental justice, public health, and biodiversity. Our Coalition also attended many events programmed at De Justicia’s salon, which focused on the social, environmental, and public health impacts of the illicit cocaine trade in the region, coca’s traditional and cultural uses, and the impetus for transforming the national and regional illicit drug economy.
