According to FFI, Cambodian forests are being destroyed through the production of sassafras oil, extracted from Mreah Prew Phnom trees (Cinnamomum parathenoxylon). The oil is a key ingredient of the recreational drug ecstasy, reports IRIN News

CAMBODIA: Ecstasy tabs destroying forest wilderness
IRIN News
20 July 2008

PHNOM PENH, 20 July 2008 (IRIN) - The production of sassafras oil, which is used to make the recreational drug ecstasy, in southwest Cambodia, is destroying trees, the livelihoods of local inhabitants and wreaking untold ecological damage, according to David Bradfield, adviser to the Wildlife Sanctuaries Project of Fauna and Flora International (FFI).

The sassafras oil comes from the Cardamom Mountain area, one of the last forest wildernesses in mainland southeast Asia, and where the FFI project is based.

"The illicit distilling of sassafras oil in these mountains is slowly but surely killing the forests and wildlife," Bradfield told IRIN. "The production of sassafras oil is a huge operation, which affects not only the area where the distilleries are actually located, but ripples outwards, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake." 

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