Coca cultivation has increased by 35% between 2020 and 2021, reaching a historic high, the UN said this Thursday, referring to the emergence of new drug centers in southeastern Europe and Africa.
In 2021, over 300,000 hectares of plantations will appear in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the three countries with the most coca plantations, warned the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based in Vienna, Austria.
Once harvested, the coca leaves are treated with chemicals and mixed with gasoline, lime, cement, and ammonium sulfate to produce a white paste.
This paste is then enriched in the laboratory with a mixture of acids and solvents, turning it into cocaine.
According to the report, cocaine production has already reached over 2,000 tons in 2020, which is already a record.
After temporary interruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the global supply “continued to expand very strongly,” the UN said in a statement, which explains that, in addition to developing culture, “improvement in the process of converting” leaves into cocaine.
At the same time, the organization has seen “continuous growth” in demand for cocaine over the past decade, as evidenced by unprecedented seizures (nearly 2,000 tons in 2021).
Demand is still concentrated among the richest segments of the population in the Americas and in various regions of Europe.
“This ‘explosion’ should alert us,” UNODC Director Ghada Wali, quoted in the statement, said in defense.
Central and West Africa are also playing an increasingly important role as transit areas, with more and more cocaine passing through Turkey and Greece.
On the other hand, the use of “crack” – a highly addictive, smoked derivative of cocaine known as a “poor man’s drug” – has become widely used in the UK, but statistics show a “surge” in abstinence in Belgium. , France and Spain.
The report also notes the impact of the war in Ukraine on drug trafficking routes, concluding that it is “likely that foreign criminal groups” that previously used Ukrainian ports to evade control in Western Europe are shifting “their activities to other ports in Black Sea. The sea, like Romania or Bulgaria.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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