(Bloomberg) -- Colombia has once again produced cocaine at a record pace as President Gustavo Petro’s government changed the country’s strategy for fighting illegal drugs.
The area of land planted with coca leaf — the raw material for cocaine — rose 10% last year, to 253,000 hectares, according to a report published Friday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This area has the potential to produce 2,664 tons of cocaine, a 53% rise from the previous year.
Candice Welsch, the UNODC representative for the Andean region and the Southern Cone, said during the report’s presentation in Bogota that a hectare of coca now produces up to twice as much as it did ten years ago.
When Petro took office, he shifted the government’s approach to drug control, moving from a focus on removing coca crops to prioritizing interdiction, which involves seizing cocaine shipments and destroying production labs. Petro argues that farmers are the weakest link in the drug supply chain, and the strategy should concentrate on targeting major drug lords.
As a result of this new approach, the manual eradication of coca crops fell by 66% through September compared to the previous year, reaching the lowest level since at least 2014, with only 4,504 hectares eliminated. Meanwhile, cocaine confiscations rose by 21% from 2022 to 684 tons, according to data from the Defense Ministry.
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