A recent UN report reveals Colombia’s significant increase in coca cultivation, marking it as the world’s top producer of cocaine. Despite efforts to combat drug production, Colombia saw a 13 percent rise in coca crop area in 2022, totaling 230,000 hectares. President Gustavo Petro has proposed shifting drug policy from a military to a health-focused approach, aiming to reduce cocaine output and deforestation linked to drug trafficking. This surge in production has sparked global concern, especially as North America leads in cocaine consumption, with millions of users reported in 2022. The report sheds light on Colombia’s escalating role in the global cocaine market and the challenges it poses for international drug control efforts.
Cocaine is consumed all over the world, although its source, the coca plant, is mostly grown in three Latin American countries: Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia.
The latter made headlines in the fall of 2023 after the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a report indicating that the area used for coca crops in 2022 increased to 230,000 hectares, a 13 percent rise over 2021, according to Reuters.
As Statista’s Florian Zandt illustrates in the graphic below, this strengthens Colombia’s position as the world’s leading coca grower.
According to UNODC data, Colombia accounted for over two-thirds of the total coca-growing area in 2022. Peru finished second with 95,000 hectares, while Bolivia finished third with 30,000 hectares. To address the growth in acreage allocated to coca cultivation, Colombian President Gustavo Petro argued for the acknowledgment of drugs as a “health problem for society” rather than a “military problem” during the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs in September.
Following the session, Petro proposed a new national anti-drug strategy for October 2023. Reuters defined the ten-year plan’s basic principles as attempting to “reduce the size of coca crops, cut potential cocaine output, and prevent deforestation linked to drug trafficking while helping transition small farmers to the legal economy.”
When looking at the cocaine market from the standpoint of users, North America had the highest estimated share of people claiming to have consumed cocaine in 2022, accounting for 6.5 million or 28% of total global cocaine users.
According to the UNODC’s World Drug Report, the Americas account for over half of all estimated cocaine users globally, while Europe and Asia have 5.7 million and 2.9 million, respectively.
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