Colombia's president says you can't do cocaine and claim to be an environmentalist

Iván Duque.
(Image credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

If you use cocaine and call yourself an environmentalist, Colombian President Iván Duque considers you a hypocrite.

During an interview with The Guardian on Monday, Duque discussed the different ways cocaine production harms his country. "There are many people who present themselves as environmentalists, and if they want to be coherent, they must understand all the environmental damage that is caused by the production of cocaine — not just destroying tropical forests, [but] spreading chemicals in protected areas and destroying human capital," he said, adding, "How can you present yourself as a defender of the environment when you are creating so much harm? There needs to be an end to hypocrisy and inconsistency."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.