No products in the cart.
Green parties, real damage: when our drug use contradicts our values.
Article en français.
Electronic music culture loooooves talking about sustainability, especially that we managed to make it cool. Festivals advertise reusable cups, water fountains and dry toilets; artists are increasingly questioned about private jets; audiences are encouraged to take the train, avoid fast fashion and pay attention to the environmental cost of the events they attend. Many organisations now publish environmental charters, measure travel emissions and try to reduce single-use plastics.
Much of this progress is real, and the fact that ecological questions have become part of nightlife’s public language should be welcomed. What remains striking, however, is how abruptly that curiosity tends to disappear when the conversation reaches drugs.
We may know how a headliner travelled to a festival, yet have no idea where the cocaine consumed in the toilets came from. We may ask whether a venue uses renewable energy without wondering how much electricity was needed to grow the cannabis being smoked outside. We can spend an afternoon discussing the carbon footprint of touring and then take an MDMA pill without thinking about the chemicals used to produce it or the waste left behind.
The environmental and human impact of the substances consumed in nightlife remains one of electronic music’s largest blind spots. The subject is uncomfortable precisely because it is so close to us. It forces us to look beyond governments, corporations and distant industries, and to ask whether some of our own pleasures are connected to the same systems of exploitation, pollution and violence that we criticise elsewhere.
That does not mean reducing drug use to an individual moral failure. It does mean admitting that it has material consequences.
Punishing consumers more severely will not solve the problem
On December 16, 2025, in Marseille, Emmanuel Macron announced that he wanted to increase France’s fixed fine for drug use from €200 to €500. He presented the measure as a way to “hit people in the wallet”, while also declaring that “taking drugs is not festive”.
Since then, the proposal has had a turbulent parliamentary journey. It was removed by the French National Assembly’s Law Committee on June 24, 2026, before being reintroduced through amendments during the examination of the Ripost bill. At the time of writing, the legislative debate has not been definitively settled.
Our position on this is nuanced, but it is not indecisive.
Harm reduction must remain the starting point. Addiction is not a moral defect, nor can it be explained simply by a lack of willpower. People’s relationships with substances are shaped by psychological, biological and social factors that vary enormously from one person to another.
Some people consume drugs for pleasure. Others use them to feel more comfortable socially, to stay awake through the night, to cope with demanding working conditions, to quiet anxiety or to numb emotional pain. In some cases, substance use is occasional and controlled. In others, dependency can develop quickly and become extremely difficult to escape.
We are not equal in front of drugs. We do not have the same vulnerabilities, the same support networks or the same access to care. We are also not exposed to the same financial, medical and legal consequences.
For someone with a high income, a €500 fine may be an unpleasant expense. For someone living in poverty, it can represent several weeks of food, rent or bills. A policy designed to “hit people in the wallet” will always hit hardest those whose finances are already most fragile.
It does not address why people consume, how dependency develops or why some people struggle to access treatment. It does not improve the composition of substances, make products safer or change the social conditions surrounding their use.
Rejecting criminalisation, however, should not require us to pretend that consumption is neutral. Drugs carry real health risks, but they are also connected to economic, environmental and human supply chains whose violence often remains invisible from a European dancefloor.
That is the contradiction that deserves more attention.
Cocaine has become ordinary
In France, cocaine is now the most widely used illegal substance after cannabis.
The proportion of adults aged 18 to 64 who had tried cocaine rose from 5.6% in 2017 to 9.4% in 2023. Around 1.1 million people aged 11 to 75 used cocaine at least once in 2023, compared with approximately 450,000 in 2017.
In six years, the estimated number of annual consumers more than doubled.
The market has adapted accordingly. The latest observations from the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show that cocaine has become easier to access, particularly through delivery services and the sale of smaller quantities. Its real price has declined, while its purity has increased in several regions studied in 2025.
In 2023, the French illegal drug market was estimated to be worth €6.8 billion, compared with €2.3 billion in 2010. Cocaine alone generated approximately €3.1 billion in turnover, overtaking cannabis, whose market was valued at around €2.7 billion. Together, the two substances represented almost 90% of the French market by value.
The OFDT estimates that around 47 tonnes of cocaine were consumed in France in 2023.
The environmental problem therefore goes far beyond the theoretical impact of an individual line. It is also about scale. A larger market requires more cultivation, more processing, more transport, more chemical inputs and more territory absorbed into the economy surrounding the product.
Cocaine has also escaped the narrow social image that once surrounded it. It is no longer associated only with nightclubs, wealthy circles or visibly chaotic consumption. It now circulates through festivals, bars, dinners, weddings, offices and after-work drinks.
Although it remains officially classified as a hard drug, its social image has softened considerably. It has become compatible with a stable professional life, a polished public image, progressive politics and social respectability.
Someone can publicly condemn trafficking and still contribute to its economy a few hours later in a club bathroom. That contradiction has become so familiar that it often goes unexamined.
Global cocaine production reached 3,708 tonnes in one year
Worldwide cocaine production reached a new record in 2023, with 3,708 tonnes of pure cocaine produced, almost 34% more than in 2022.
In Colombia, the world’s largest producer, coca crops covered 253,000 hectares in 2023, an increase of 10% in a single year. Potential cocaine production increased even more sharply, rising by 53% to reach 2,664 tonnes.
These figures show the extraordinary scale of the market, but they should be handled carefully.
One widely repeated estimate claims that a single gram of cocaine is linked to four square metres of forest destruction. The figure comes from a UNODC communication published in 2009. It gives a rough idea of the potential damage associated with the industry, but presenting it today as a precise and universal equivalence would be misleading.
The environmental impact varies depending on the territory, the yield of the crops, the production methods and the way land is occupied.
The relationship between coca cultivation and deforestation is also more complex than it is sometimes presented. Coca is not always the main direct cause of forest loss, but its cultivation can contribute to the opening of illegal roads, the occupation of new land and the development of other activities such as extensive cattle farming, illegal mining and timber trafficking.
The environmental footprint also extends beyond the fields. Producing cocaine requires fuel, solvents, acids and other chemicals. Within a clandestine economy, there is no transparent system governing how those products are stored, used or discarded.
The resulting pollution remains in the territories where the drug is produced, while most of the profits move elsewhere.
Behind a line of cocaine lies an entire economy
By the time cocaine reaches a European club, the places where it was cultivated and processed can feel impossibly distant.
That distance makes the violence easier to ignore. The consumer sees a small bag of powder, not the roads opened through forested areas, the chemicals released into soil and water, the rural communities caught between criminal organisations and police operations, or the local economies that become dependent on the illegal market.
In Colombia, 39% of the potential production of coca leaves comes from highly productive areas representing only 14% of the total cultivated territory.
Around 209,000 hectares of coca were located within twelve kilometres of a populated area in 2023, compared with 189,000 hectares one year earlier.
This proximity can have profound consequences. It can change how land is used, draw criminal organisations into local communities, create economic dependency and expose residents to the chemicals used during processing.
Of course, someone buying a gram in Paris, Berlin or London does not choose Colombian agricultural policy. They do not determine the trafficking routes, the laundering systems, the ports used to transport the product or the organisations involved in distribution.
Their purchase is nevertheless connected to that chain.
Acknowledging this does not mean making the consumer solely responsible for global drug trafficking. It means recognising that the transaction does not begin and end with the person who consumes the product.
MDMA does not come from a spotless laboratory
MDMA carries a different image.
It is associated with rave culture, intimacy, colour, empathy and a particular idea of collective connection. Because it is synthetic and much of it is produced in Europe, it can appear cleaner than cocaine. Its production nevertheless depends on a clandestine chemical industry operating on a very large scale.
In January 2026, Europol announced the dismantling of 24 industrial laboratories during the largest European operation ever conducted against synthetic-drug production.
Authorities seized 1,000 tonnes of chemicals, which could have been used to manufacture approximately 300 tonnes of synthetic drugs.
That relationship should not be interpreted as a universal waste ratio. The seized chemicals included substances intended for production, rather than waste alone. Even so, the figures reveal how much material is required to supply the synthetic-drug market.
Producing large quantities of pills, crystals or powder requires precursors, solvents and corrosive substances to be imported, transported, stored and handled. Some of those materials inevitably become hazardous waste.
Between 2019 and 2023, 1,194 dumping sites containing waste from drug manufacturing were reported to the UNODC in only seven European countries.
That number includes only the sites that were discovered and officially reported.
Illegal laboratories do not have regulated waste-processing systems, environmental inspections or traceability requirements. Chemical residues may be abandoned in containers, warehouses or vans, or dumped into sewers, forests, ditches and waterways.
The people left dealing with the contamination are often landowners, residents and local authorities who had no involvement in the production itself.
By the time the product reaches a dancefloor, the entire process has been reduced to a brightly coloured pill.
Four million ecstasy pills seized in France
The expansion of the MDMA market is also visible in French data.
In 2023, more than four million ecstasy pills, or their equivalent in powder form, were seized in France. This represented a 164% increase compared with 2022 and the highest level recorded since 1996.
Around 70% of these products were considered to be in transit, while 30% were intended for the French market.
Annual use of MDMA or ecstasy involved approximately 750,000 people in France in 2023. Between 2010 and 2023, the estimated value of the French MDMA market increased by 637%.
These figures do not prove that every pill generates the same amount of pollution. Production methods, dosages and supply routes differ. They do show, however, that a product once associated with a relatively marginal subculture has become a mass commodity.
The pollution linked to its production can no longer be treated as an exceptional side effect of a small underground industry.
Indoor cannabis: green in appearance, carbon-intensive in practice
Cannabis is often perceived as the most natural substance.
Because it is a plant, it is tempting to assume that it is automatically environmentally friendly. In reality, its footprint depends heavily on how it is grown.
A plant cultivated outdoors in a suitable climate has very different energy requirements from one grown inside a sealed building. Indoor cultivation may require powerful lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, dehumidification and constant air renewal.
A study published in 2025 in the scientific journal One Earth estimated that the legal and illegal US cannabis industry generated approximately 44 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2023.
That represents around 1% of total US emissions and roughly the annual emissions of almost ten million cars or six million homes.
The study estimated the sector’s annual energy consumption at around 595 petajoules. Approximately 90% of its climate footprint was associated with cannabis grown indoors or in heavily controlled environments.
According to the study’s average estimates, producing one kilogram of cannabis flower could generate approximately 4.5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent when grown entirely indoors, 2.5 tonnes when grown in a greenhouse and around 700 kilograms when grown outdoors.
These figures concern the United States and cannot be applied directly to France or the rest of Europe, where the climate, electricity mix, yields and production methods differ.
They nevertheless show how dramatically the cultivation method can alter the impact of the same product. The researchers estimated that a major shift towards outdoor cultivation could reduce emissions from the US cannabis sector by as much as 76%. The fact that cannabis is a plant tells us almost nothing about the environmental cost of bringing it to market.
Prohibition is also part of the environmental problem
Clandestine production makes coherent environmental standards almost impossible to enforce.
There is no reliable traceability, no consistent inspection of laboratories and no transparent system for dealing with chemical waste. Consumers generally have no information about where or how the product was produced.
In the case of cannabis, illegality can push growers towards concealed indoor facilities even where outdoor cultivation would consume far less energy. For synthetic drugs, the need to avoid detection encourages producers to dump waste quickly and anonymously. In coca-growing regions, eradication policies can displace crops into more remote territories without reducing global demand.
Recognising the environmental damage caused by drugs does not automatically lead to the conclusion that greater repression is the solution. Prohibition is already part of the environmental equation.
Legal or regulated production would not automatically become sustainable or ethical. Legal industries are perfectly capable of polluting, exploiting workers and hiding their impact. Regulation would at least create the possibility of setting production standards, imposing energy limits, organising proper waste treatment and introducing health and environmental inspections.
At present, these questions are largely abandoned to clandestine markets, which have no incentive to make their practices transparent.
Why Shein is easier to criticise than our dealer
Fast fashion is a relatively comfortable enemy.
It has visible brands, identifiable executives and recognisable factories. People can condemn a company, share an infographic and choose to buy second-hand or shop elsewhere. Questioning drug use is more difficult because the alternative may involve consuming less, changing the way we party or becoming sober.
The personal cost is not the same.
Taking the environmental and human impact of drugs seriously also means accepting that a supposedly progressive party can still participate in an economy built on exploitation, pollution and violence.
A queer club does not make the cocaine consumed inside it cleaner. An anti-capitalist rave does not change the chemical waste produced by an MDMA laboratory. A festival’s sustainability charter does not reduce the energy required to grow cannabis indoors.
A space can hold meaningful political values while remaining caught in the same contradictions as the rest of society. Recognising that contradiction does not invalidate the work being done. It simply prevents those values from becoming a form of moral immunity.
Private jets are extremely polluting. Multinational companies bear far more responsibility than individual consumers. Governments have considerably more power to change the conditions of production. All of that remains true. The existence of larger polluters does not make our own consumption neutral. An environmental commitment that ends exactly where personal pleasure begins risks becoming more of an identity than a political position.
“Consumers fund trafficking” is true, but insufficient
Governments repeatedly claim that consumers finance drug trafficking and the violence associated with it.
Materially, that is true. Money spent on an illegal product enters a supply chain about which the buyer usually knows almost nothing.
The argument becomes misleading, however, when the consumer is presented as the main person responsible for the entire system.
Consumers do not design prohibition policies, determine poverty levels in producing countries, organise international money laundering or decide who has access to healthcare. They do not control port security, border policy, agricultural investment or policing priorities.
Responsibility exists at several levels, and it is not evenly distributed.
Fining someone €500 for possessing a gram of cocaine does not clean contaminated soil in the Netherlands, protect forests in Colombia, fund alternative livelihoods for farming communities or test the contents of a pill.
It does not treat addiction either. Nor is it likely to stop a market that generates more than €3 billion a year in France alone. Individual punishment creates the appearance of immediate action against a phenomenon whose causes and consequences are far more complex.
Harm reduction must remain our starting point
Talking about these consequences should never become an excuse to humiliate people who use drugs.
Nightlife does not need another morality police. It needs drug checking, free water, calm spaces, trained professionals and real access to healthcare. People need honest information about composition, dosage and the risks of combining substances.
The conversation should also include the conditions that encourage consumption in the first place.
Festivals can last for several days. DJs move from one airport to another with very little sleep. Technicians work extremely long shifts. Audiences are expected to arrive early, stay until morning and remain energetic and sociable throughout.
In that context, substances can begin to serve a structural function. They help people stay awake, manage exhaustion, feel more confident or endure working conditions that would otherwise be difficult to sustain.
Some drug use is encouraged by the way nightlife itself is organised.
A discussion focused entirely on individual responsibility therefore misses part of the problem.
Harm reduction could also include more information about the environmental and social history of substances. We already explain that a pill may contain a dangerously high dose, that repeated use can increase certain risks and that mixing drugs may be unsafe.
We can also explain that a product was cultivated, manufactured, transported and sold, and that each stage leaves consequences behind.
Providing that information does not require shaming anyone.
Sobriety should not become a form of moral superiority
It would be equally unhelpful to portray sober people as morally better.
Some people do not use drugs because they simply have no interest in them. Others have experienced addiction, take medication, live with health issues or are trying to avoid relapse.
Some consume occasionally without any apparent difficulty. Others become dependent very quickly.
We do not share the same vulnerabilities or life experiences, and the same substance does not affect everyone in the same way.
Nightlife could nevertheless do much more to welcome people who do not want to consume. Better alcohol-free drinks, quieter areas, less exhausting schedules and a culture in which refusing a substance requires no explanation would already make a difference.
At present, alcohol and drugs still operate as a kind of unofficial entry fee in many social spaces. Nobody is formally forced to consume, but some nightlife environments are organised in ways that make it harder to stay awake, relax, dance or socialise without chemical help. That pressure deserves to be questioned as well.
Facing the contradiction
There is no simple solution.
Greater repression will not eliminate dependency, trafficking or chemical pollution. Looking away in the name of individual freedom will not make those consequences disappear either.
A serious drug policy should invest in prevention, healthcare, drug checking, research and social support. It should also examine the role prohibition plays in keeping production hidden and making environmental standards almost impossible to enforce.
Within electronic music culture, a useful first step would be to stop pretending that our pleasures exist outside the systems of power we criticise elsewhere. A line of cocaine is not a private jet. An MDMA pill is not an oil company. A person who uses drugs is not solely responsible for the global drug trade. None of that makes consumption neutral. It is possible to defend harm reduction while discussing the damage caused by production. It is possible to reject stigma without contributing to normalisation. It is possible to oppose automatic repression while still examining our own habits.
Nightlife does not need moral purity. It needs a more honest conversation about the contradictions it already lives with.