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The countries of the Americas detected changes in the cultivation and production of coca-based drugs, affirms a report published by the OAS. Laboratories have more capacity to produce cocaine, they take less time to produce it, and there is greater access to the chemical precursors used in its manufacture, including sulfuric acid and potassium permanganate.
Seizures in the region increased from 911 metric tons in 2016 to 1,091 in 2020, says the Report on the Supply of Drugs in the Americas 2022, which covers the period 2016-2020.
The data from Colombia indicate that “productivity increased as a result of changes in the processing and use of different varieties of coca with a longer productive life,” says the report of the Organization of American States, which specifies that Peru observed the same trend.
All this improves productivity, while the level of crop eradication varies from country to country: in Colombia it increased, from 18,000 hectares in 2016 to more than 130,000 in 2020, while in Peru (from 30,000 hectares in 2016 to 6,272 in 2020) and in Bolivia (from 6,577 in 2016 to 2,177 in 2020) it fell considerably.
“The use of more efficient production techniques and the misuse of chemical precursors have led to an increase in the quantity, potency and harmfulness of some drugs,” says Luis Fernando Lima Oliveira, secretary of multidimensional security of the the OAS.
There is no single drug that defines the supply of narcotics in the Americas.
Concerns vary from country to country. Heroin, for example, only worries Guatemala, Mexico and United States.
In the United States, opioids have caused an epidemic of lethal consequences with 107,622 Americans dying from poisoning or overdose in 2021.
Security forces have a lot of trouble detecting it because, due to its great potency, “it is trafficked in small quantities and is often mixed with other drugs or sold under the name of another drug,” the report said.
One of the trends in the United States is “the substantial increase in counterfeit pills containing fentanyl,” known as “blended fentanyl,” it warns.
