21 hours ago · Cocaine "is no worse than whiskey" and is only illegal because it comes from Latin America, said Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose nation is the world's biggest cocaine producer and exporter.

Stacks of cocaine seized by the Colombian police. The illegal drug trade in Colombia has, since the 1970s, centered successively on four major drug trafficking cartels: Medellín, Cali, Norte del Valle, and North Coast, as well as several bandas criminales, or BACRIMs. [1]

23 hours ago · Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a government meeting that cocaine is “not worse than whiskey” and that it's only illegal because it comes from Latin America. Colombia, the world's largest producer and exporter of cocaine, has spent decades fighting drug trafficking, but the country ...

15 hours ago · Combating narco-subs and narco-terrorism in the U.S. and abroad 04:35. A semi-submersible vessel loaded with over 5,000 pounds of cocaine was intercepted off the Pacific coast of Colombia, the ...

1 day ago · Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that “cocaine is no worse than whiskey” as the production of coca, the drug’s base ingredient, surges under his presidency.

18 hours ago · Colombia is by far the world's biggest cocaine producer, and cultivation of coca leaves — the drug's base ingredient — reached a record high in the country in 2023, the UN Office on Drugs and ...

3 days ago · In a Colombian cocaine hub, a fragile peace falls apart. The fighting between two armed drug trafficking groups — fueled and financed in part by a booming global cocaine business — has left ...

Jul 13, 2024 · For decades, one industry has sustained the small, remote Colombian village of Caño Cabra: cocaine. Those who live in this community in the central part of the country rise early nearly...

Nov 22, 2022 · Drug production boomed in Colombia during the pandemic. The total area harvested for coca leaves – the main ingredient for cocaine – grew 43% in 2021 according to a new annual survey by the...

Colombia and the United States aim to sustainably reduce Colombia’s cocaine production and coca cultivation to 50 percent of 2017 levels by the end of 2023. This goal was reaffirmed at the most recent Counternarcotics Working Group meeting in March 2020 .