The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a report on Monday saying that Colombia, one of the world’s largest producers, has a “record high” production of cocaine worldwide by 2020, despite cutting back on cocaine. lands.
The alarming rise in worldwide cocaine production and consumption is particularly troubling because Colombia, the world’s largest producer of coca trees, has elected a former left-wing guerrilla chief. President-elect Gustavo Petro will become the country’s first left-wing president and has pledged to end Colombia’s war on drugs with programs such as replacing coca cultivation with marijuana and eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers to combat illegal coca cultivation.
Colombian Marxists, particularly narco-terrorists like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have used the cocaine trade to finance terrorist activities for decades. The FARC’s success in forcing the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos to accept a “peace deal” that gave its members unopposed seats in Congress and the possibility of a political “crime pardon” in 2016 has resulted in the largest cocaine production in Colombia. History. One year later.
The UNODC 2022 World Drug Report was released this week and details global trends in the use and production of various illicit drugs, including amphetamines, opioids and cannabis, but covers 2020. The coca bush, which accounts for 61 percent of world production.
“The global area under coca bush cultivation remained virtually unchanged at 234,200 hectares in 2020. [hectares]”It’s 5% lower than the 2018 peak value,” he said. However, “potential cocaine production reached a new record high of 1,982 tonnes (adjusted for 100 percent purity) in 2020, up 11 percent from the previous year.”
“Production increased by 8 percent in Colombia and 16.5 percent in Peru and Multinational Bolivia. Global cocaine production has more than doubled since 2014 low,” the report said.
The report says the amount of land used to grow coca in Colombia is declining, but the “hotspots” where the drug is grown are now producing more leaves, more alkaloids and more cocaine each. acre ”
“Coca bush cultivation in Colombia more than tripled during the FARC-EP peace talks and then declined after the November 2016 peace deal,” the report said. “By 2020, potential cocaine production in Colombia will increase by 8 percent to 1,228 tonnes, thanks to increased yields and improved laboratory efficiency, despite a 9 percent decrease in productive coca cultivation from last year.”
Santos served as Colombian president for four years in 2014 and was pleased with the impact of his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe’s policies. During his eight-year tenure from 2002 to 2010, Uribe worked with the US government to use counterterrorism tactics similar to those used against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight FARC leaders. .
Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrillas. (LUIS ROBAIO/AFP via Getty Images)
Formerly considered the world’s most funded insurgency, the 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is at its smallest and most vulnerable in decades. Washington Post In 2013, “due to a CIA covert ops program that helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current US and Colombian officials.”
After the “peace deal” in 2016, some of the top FARC leaders declared war on the Colombian government and moved to Venezuela, where the socialist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro has proven to be a friendly ally. The Colombian government and its allies under President Joe Biden call FARC terrorists actively involved in FARC terrorism “dissidents” in an attempt to hide the failure of the peace deal, and only terrorists currently in Congress refer to the FARC. . as opponents. Legitimate members of the FARC. The Biden administration removed the FARC from its list of foreign terrorist organizations in November due to opposition from the Colombian government.
Organized crime experts believe that high-ranking members of the Maduro regime are closely linked to the transnational cocaine trade. Diosdado Cabello, leader and broadcaster of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), has been repeatedly elected as the leader of Cartel de los Soles, one of the largest cocaine trafficking organizations in the hemisphere.
Maduro’s two nephews were sentenced to 18 years in prison for trying to smuggle 1,700 pounds of cocaine believed to belong to the FARC in the US in 2018.
Last week, the FARC issued a cheery press release in response to Gustavo Petro’s victory in this month’s presidential election.
“We support the government of life and hope that with the shield of the Amazon rainforest it will emerge as a new dawn that seeks to bring peace and dignity back to us to protect the world from climate change,” the terrorist group said. “Let’s all unite fearlessly at the forefront of the struggle for social justice.”
Petro has repeatedly downplayed the threat of cocaine use in public, describing sugar as “a more harmful drug” than cocaine or marijuana, and similarly describing fossil fuels as more dangerous than stimulants. Petro actively denies the use of the glyphosate herbicide to destroy cocaine crops, calling the practice a “US imposition for commercial interests”.
“We need agreements with farming communities and agrarian reform to end coca cultivation,” Petro said in 2019.
Air freshener with glyphosate is deadly, it’s simply an imposition that the US government has caught on its agencies for commercial interests.
Agreements are needed with rural and agrarian reform communities to end Coca’s hoja criminals.
https://t.co/vnPizNsmB6– Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) 1 July 2019
Petro has also opposed extradition of cocaine criminals to the United States and has recently contacted Maduro in Venezuela, threatening a Ukrainian-style invasion of Colombia after Diosdado Cabello, the alleged leader of the Cartel de los Soles, launched its own invasion by Russia. He wanted to build relationships. war. February attacks.
Source: Breitbart
