Colombian drug mafia

Colombian soldiers in coca fields. Fernando Vergara / Ap 

Colombian drug mafia  

A new cocaine record was broken in Colombia in 2022 

The world's largest cocaine producer Colombia broke a new production record in 2022: 1,738 tons, according to a new UN report according to AFP.  

This is an increase from 1,400 tons in 2021. The cultivation of coca leaves increased by 13 percent and covered an area of 230,000 hectares. 

It is the highest figure since the United Nations Office for Drug Control, UNODC, began keeping statistics. 

Almost two-thirds of the coca leaves are grown in the southwestern regions of Nariño and Putumayo, on the border with Ecuador. 

Around half is grown in reserves for indigenous people, and another 15 percent in national parks and nature reserves. 

Colombia map

Gustavo Petro. Ivan Valencia / AP  

The President: A new view of the drug war is required  

Colombian President Gustavo Petro proposed this weekend a new alliance of Latin American countries to tackle drug trafficking, citing drugs as a public health problem, Reuters reports.  

50 years of failed war on drugs has resulted in bloodshed and enormous suffering in Latin America - it is time to move away from the "failed discourse", was the President's message. 

- It is time to build hope and not repeat the bloody and violent wars, the ill-named "war on drugs" that treats drugs as a military problem and not a societal health problem.  

The message was given during Petro's closing remarks after a Latin American-Caribbean conference on drugs in Cali, Colombia.