The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced that coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia has sharply decreased. Cultivation dropped by 18% to 81,000 hectares, while production dropped by 28%, from 600 metric tons in 2007 to 430 metric tons in 2008. The UNODC attributes this to a decline in the value of the coca leaf for Colombia farmers, as well as successful manual eradication and fumigation tactics."Cocaine supply is shrinking, as is demand in major markets in North America while cocaine use in Western Europe has stopped growing," said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UNODC. "This may explain why prices are up, and purity is down. This may also explain why cartels are becoming so violent."
A decline was not the case for two other Andean nations: Cultivation increased by 6% in Bolivia and 4.5% in Peru. Their cocaine production levels increased by 9% and 4.1% respectively.
Online sources: UNODC, CNN
Image: International Business Times
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