The biggest producer and exporter of cocaine in the world, Colombia has just broken records.
In 2021, the areas under coca cultivation, whose leaves are used as a raw material to make cocaine, represented 204,000 hectares.
That is an increase of more than 40% in the space of just one year (2020-2021).
For the Colombian government, these figures reported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (in Colombia UNODC) are “a visible and clear sign of the failure of the war on drugs”.
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After nearly four decades of a bloody drug war against a backdrop of internal conflict, the new President Gustavo Petro is aiming for "total peace".
No more forced eradications of illegal coca cultivation, the Colombian president defends coca growers and promises rural reform to boost food production and economic benefits for those who abandon illicit crops.
"Drug traffickers who negotiate legal benefits with the Colombian state and cease to be drug traffickers will not be extradited (to the United States, editor's note)", he also announced at the end of August.
For now, Colombia remains the largest producer and exporter of cocaine in the world, with the United States as its largest customers.