Coca leaf crops increased substantially in Colombia in 2021 and reached the historical level of 204,000 hectares planted, breaking the reduction trend of the last three years, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed on Thursday. , for its acronym in English).
The increase in the planted area was 43%, thus exceeding the 143,000 hectares registered in 2020 and the highest point in the historical series that had been documented so far in 2017, with 171,000 hectares.
Candice Welsch, UNODC regional director for the Andean Region and the Southern Cone, pointed out when presenting the report that the potential to produce cocaine hydrochloride grew by 14%, reaching 1,400 tons per year, maintaining the upward trend that has been consolidating since 2014 in the country.
“Once again the highest figure in the 22 years of UNODC monitoring,” Welsch stressed. The Colombian Minister of Justice, Néstor Osuna Patiño, assured that the report is an evident example of the “failure of the war on drugs” speaking in the same sense as President Gustavo Petro has done, who proposes to reformulate that fight.
