US Report Says Colombia Coca Production Has Risen to Record High – Urban Christian News

The amount of land where peasants and drug traffickers harvest the plant used to make cocaine has surged to a record high in Colombia, a White House report said Monday, a boom that could further test historically close relations with the United States.

Annual data for 2017 says coca cultivation rose 11 percent to 209,000 hectares (516,450 acres), a level unseen in more than two decades of record keeping and $10 billion in U.S. counter-narcotics work. Estimated cocaine production increased 19 percent to 921 metric tons.

“President Trump’s message to Colombia is clear: The record growth in cocaine production must be reversed,” said Jim Carroll, deputy director for the drug policy office.

Coca production in Colombia has been steadily increasing since 2013, when negotiations with the now demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia got underway. The FARC had been one of Colombia’s biggest drug trafficking organizations, and many had hoped after the signing of the peace accord in 2016 that the country would put an end to the scourge for good.

Instead, new illegal armed groups have moved into the desolate jungle previously controlled by the rebel band and taken control of drug trafficking routes. Parts of the peace accord dedicated to eradicating coca and providing poor Colombians who make a living growing coca with a viable alternative also have struggled to get off the ground.

Combined with Colombia’s decision to end aerial spraying of herbicides on illicit crops in 2015 over health concerns, the amount of coca in the countryside continues to grow.

President-elect Ivan…