Cocaine production surges in Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia saw a record level of coca plant cultivation last year, according to a new United Nations report, raising renewed concerns about the war on drugs.

Reasons for the increased cultivation of the plant used to make cocaine include the suspension three years ago of an aerial herbicide spraying program and a lack of alternatives for poor farmers, authorities said.

Colombian President Ivan Duque, who took office in August, has called coca production a national security risk and faces challenges to placate the United States, a staunch ally that has spent billions of dollars in anti-drug aid in the country.

President Donald Trump has warned that he may consider Colombia uncooperative in the drug war.

Enough coca plants were grown in 2017 to produce 1,379 metric tons of cocaine, up 31 percent from the 2016 harvest, said Bo Mathiasen, representative of the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia.

“This is the highest figure since the United Nations began monitoring coca crops in Colombia” in 1999, Mathiasen told reporters in Bogota, the capital, last week.

Perceived impunity among farmers in remote coca-growing areas has opened the way for entry of more fertilizers and other aids, pushing up yields, he said. Drug gangs in lawless areas give farmers no choice but to grow coca, he said.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy think tank in Washington, said he was “not surprised but still shocked” by the result in light of the $10 billion in anti-drug and counterterrorism aid the U.S. has given to Colombia since 2000.

“The best anti-drug policy is building strong governmental institutions in areas where coca is grown and in focusing on rural development,” Shifter said. “To date, however, there has been scant, if any, progress on those fronts.”