Colombian traffickers are squeezing more cocaine out of fewer coca plants
REUTERS/ John Vizcaino
- The total area of coca under cultivation in Colombia dropped in 2019, according to the UN, but the of amount cocaine, in which coca is the base ingredient, produced rose over the same period.
- The trend shows that criminals can get more cocaine from fewer crops and illustrates that eradication alone is not enough.
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A drop of 15,000 hectares of coca crops in Colombia made no difference in reducing cocaine production in 2019 — instead it increased compared with the previous year.
Coca crops covered 154,000 hectares in 2019, a drop from the 169,000 hectares recorded in 2018, according to the latest report by the Illicit Cultivations Monitoring System (Sistema Integrado de Monitoreo de Cultivos Ilícitos — SIMCI) of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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