British cocaine users are helping to destroy rainforests and fund terror groups, Colombia's vice president has warned.

Francisco Santos Calderon said every gram of cocaine snorted by a drug user causes the destruction of four square metres of rainforest.

He is appealing to Britons to consider the impact on the environment before indulging in the illegal drug.

Mr Santos is due to address a drugs conference being held by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Belfast about the damage that cocaine use in Europe and the US inflicts on his country.

He said 300,000 hectares of rainforest are destroyed each year in Colombia to clear land for coca plant cultivation, which is largely controlled by illegal groups such as the left-wing guerilla organisation Farc.

Landmines used to protect cocaine crops and processing labs are responsible for almost 900 civilian deaths in Colombia this year.

Farc and other narco-terror groups are also involved in the kidnapping of people like French politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was held for more than six years before her release earlier this year.

Mr Santos himself was kidnapped and held by a cocaine gang for 18 months in the 1990s.

He said: "If you snort a gramme of cocaine, you are destroying four square metres of rainforest and that rainforest is not just Colombian - it belongs to all of us who live on this planet, so we should all be worried about it.

"Not only that, the money that you use to buy the cocaine goes into the hands of Farc, of illegal groups that plant mines, that kidnap, that kill, that use terrorism to protect their business.

"Right now, Colombia is the number one country for landmine victims in the world. This year we are approaching 900 victims of landmines, most of them planted around labs and areas where coca is being cultivated."

Mr Santos accepts that drug addicts were unlikely to be persuaded to give up cocaine by concern about the environment or terrorism.

But he believes that middle-class Britons, who pride themselves on their green credentials, appear to believe that their cocaine use is a "victimless crime" and are unaware of its impact on the environment.

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