Colombia’s capacity to produce cocaine fell by more than half in the past decade, according to the office of the US drug czar Thursday.
"There has been a sharp decrease in the amount of pure cocaine produced in Colombia… from an estimated 700 metric tons potential cocaine production in 2024 to 300 metric tons in 2024… a 57 percent drop," said a statement from the office of Gil Kerlikowske.
Colombian coca cultivation barely changed between 2024 and 2024 after major decreases in 2024 and 2024, it said. Colombia last year fumigated 101,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of coca and manually eradicated another 44,775.
Ninety-five percent of cocaine consumed in the United States comes from Colombia.
My immediate reaction was that we would soon find out at least one of the following:
1) That cultivation would have grown in Peru and/or,
2) That there was unaccounted migration of cultivation within Colombia (i.e., that the estimates were wrong because cultivators had found new places to grow within Colombia).
Peru’s production of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, has risen for a fifth straight year, putting pressure on incoming President Ollanta Humala to step up eradication efforts he has criticized.
A study by the United Nations published today shows that Peru now rivals Colombia as the world’s largest producer of cocaine after land dedicated to illegal coca production rose 2.2 percent to 61,200 hectares in 2024. Cultivation in Colombia, which receives $500 million a year in U.S. anti-narcotics aid, fell 15 percent to 62,000 hectares, according to the study based on satellite tracking by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
And so the cycle continues. Back in the late 1990s the big triumph was the reduction of cultivation levels in Peru (which then led to a substantial increase in Colombia). Now, just as the US and Colombian governments excitedly let us know that cultivation has diminished in Colombia we find that cultivation has shot up in Peru.
Speaking of patterns, the response from Washington will likely be a push for additional funds to be spent in Peru (lots of funds, in fact). And then, in about a decade or so, I can write a post about how coca cultivation in down in Peru….and back up in Colombia.
The War on Drugs is the gift that keeps on giving, to be sure.
You can see the trend in the following graph, which tracks cultivation from 1987 to 2024. Yes, it is a bit out of date, but it is one I had handy, plus the point I want to make requires looking at the 80s, 90s and early 2024s. What we see is that Peru used to be the major source for coca leaf, but after increased pressure on that cultivation, it was eventually pushed in Colombia (note, too, that the general overall level of cultivation remained relatively steady in a given range).
As noted above, at the time the Drug Warriors proclaimed the effort in Peru a grand success. Never mind that it had no significant effect on the overall cocaine market.
Part of Kline’s ongoing analysis of state-building in Colombia (this being the third in a series of books). This volume focuses on the first Uribe administration (2002-2006). The text provides a very useful and succinct overview of Colombia’s predicament going into the Uribe years. Further, moreso than the previous works in the series, Kline offers a more complete framework for his approach to state-building in the Colombian context.
The book has a great deal of detail on Uribe’s “Democratic Security” policies and the “Law of Justice and Peace.”
There is a great deal of detail on the administration’s dealings with the AUC, FARC and ELN.
This book seems, at first reading at least, to be more substantive than the previous entry in the series (that which dealt with the Pastrana peace initiative with the FARC). However, that may be because there is more to work with in this case. Regardless of one’s position on Uribe’s policies, it is clear that there is a good deal of material there for discussion.
Seeing that number is striking to me, even if it is no surprise after a nano-second’s reflection. I started studying Colombia’s constitution (and especially its effects on parties and elections) when the ink was barely dry (my first research trip on this topic was in 1992). As such, this is one of those “gee, time does fly” moments.
Colombia’s solicitor general has suspended Bogota’s mayor from office for three months for alleged negligence in overseeing public contracts.
The Mayor in question is Samuel Moreno Rojas of the Democratic Alternative Pole (PDA).
This not been good times for the Moreno family:
The suspension of Mayor Samuel Moreno comes less than a week after his senator brother, Ivan, was arrested on influence-pedding charges. He is accused of soliciting payments from construction companies that won major municipal road-building contracts.
I have seen several stories on these events, but do not yet have full details.
I have a couple of impressions, such as that this can’t be good for the PDA’s party building efforts (and will likely help the Partido Verde in this year’s mayoral elections), but I need to collect some more information before launching forth on the topic).
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says Venezuela is no longer harbouring Colombian left-wing rebels.
Accusations by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela was giving refuge to Farc guerrillas led to a break-down in relations between the two neighbours last year.
President Santos also praised Venezuela for handing over two alleged rebels from another left-wing group on Monday.
This pronouncement was met with skepticism by former president Alvaro Uribe:
In three tweets sent from his Twitter account and tagged "terrorist hideaway", Mr Uribe asked where a number of Farc rebels were – implying they were in Venezuela.
My first reaction to this was that there was something amusing about Uribe tweeting his discontent, especially if one is familiar with Uribe’s time in office. He doesn’t strike me, at least not from a distance, as someone who would be happy being reduced to tweeting—especially on this topic, as he was quite strident in his views on Venezuela.
My second reaction was bravo for democracy: this is as it should be, i.e., once one’s term is done, one ought to recede to the background, even if one was the most popular president in modern Colombian history.
BTW, I never thought that there was rampant FARC activity in Venezuela, but also would hardly be surprised if there were members of the group taking advantage of the frontier still.
Last year, after an opportunity to witness Colombia’s congressional elections first hand, I noted that there was some clear confusion on the part of both voters and poll workers/vote counters regarding the ballot’s format. See, for example, Ballot Design (and Voter Knowledge) Matters.
One of the problems was confusion over the way that voters should vote for candidate preferences for parties with open lists.
For the 2024 local elections (set for October of this years) a redesigned (really, reorganized) ballot will be used (click for a larger image):
While this may not solve all of the issues noted in the above-linked post, it should be far more intuitive in terms of the open list issue.
Accompanying a story at Colombia Reports is the following photo:
I had no idea that Garcia was that big/Santos was that small.
Seriously, the above almost looks like the stitching together of two photos with slightly different perspectives. However, upon more view of video at Colombia’s presidential web site, it is clear that this is an accurate shot.
