Everything is connected: ecstasy, rainforests, and beyond

Over the years, I’ve worked on a number of environmental stories that have taken me from one part of the globe to another -- from Madagascar to China and all the way to Greenland.

For me, this entire journey has been a bit accidental. I’d never really considered myself to be truly “green” in any one way, but when I came to Current, I committed myself to doing stories of large global import. As I began mapping out the big stories that I felt needed to be told, many of them have happened to point back to the health of our planet.

This led me to the realization that everything is somehow tied to the environment. By simply paying attention, we can see and understand how most every action we take, nearly every product we consume, has an effect somewhere else in the world. That reaction may not be within sight – conveniently, it often isn’t – but somewhere, you can bet there’s a cost.

I began tossing around ideas about how best to illustrate that idea. Examples abound – like plastics accumulating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, electronic trash burning in an e-waste wasteland in China, or sushi’s acceptance as a global cuisine leading to an emptying of our oceans. My colleague found an unexpected, nearly grotesque example.

Ecstasy.

A few months ago,  Joanne Shen and I traveled to Cambodia to see how the global demand for ecstasy was helping drive the destruction of what was amongst the most pristine, intact rainforests in Southeast Asia. It’s a great example of how the demand for various goods can, and often has, massive, reverberating effects halfway around the world. These ‘ecstasy hunters’ are burrowing deep into the forest to obtain safrole oil, the precursor to MDMA, or ecstasy. This is the crucial ingredient for the drug.

In “The Forest of Ecstasy” you’ll see me trudge through the rainforest in search of a rare tree that’s being cut down for its high quantities of the essential oil. And we came across safrole oil ‘factories’ in the middle of the forest, extracting and refining the oil before it’s sent out to become the ecstasy pill. The damage doesn’t end there. As the guys create roads into the forest, they’re paving the roads open for poachers looking for the wildlife bounty inside. It’s a chain reaction caused by club kids looking for a good time.

I’m not suggesting we stop doing all the things we do in any given day, or stop consuming the things that have become ‘necessities’ in our lives. But a greater level of awareness just might make you think a bit more about the choices you have to make.

The world is far more connected than you might imagine.



The "Forest of Ecstasy" airs tonight Wednesday, Oct. 28 at 10/9c on Current TV. For more information, visit Vanguard on Current.com.