Illegal drug trade in Colombia
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. The trade eventually created a new social class and influenced several aspects of Colombian culture, economics, and politics.
The Colombian government efforts to reduce the influence of drug-related criminal organizations is one of the origins of the Colombian conflict, an ongoing low-intensity war among rival narcoparamilitary groups, guerrillas and drug cartels fighting each other to increase their influence and against the Colombian government that struggles to stop them.
Overview
is known for being the world's-leading producer of coca for many years. Worldwide demand for psychoactive drugs during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in increased production and processing of the plant in Colombia. Cocaine produced at $1,500/kilo in jungle labs can be sold on the streets of the US for as much as $50,000/kilo. The US, the world's largest consumer of cocaine and other illegal drugs, intervened in Colombia throughout this period in an attempt to cut off the supply of these drugs to the US. The drug barons of Colombia, such as Pablo Escobar and José Rodríguez Gacha, were long considered by authorities to be among the most dangerous, wealthy, and powerful men in the world.Since the establishment of the war on drugs, the United States and European countries have provided financial, logistical, tactical and military aid to the government of Colombia in order to implement plans to combat the illegal drug trade. The most notable of these programs has been the Plan Colombia which also intended to combat leftist organizations, such as the FARC guerrillas, who have controlled many coca-growing regions in Colombia over the past decades. In 2010, cocaine production was 60% lower than at its peak in 2000. In that same year, Peru surpassed Colombia as the main producer of coca leaves in the world. The level of drug-related violence was halved in the last 10 years and dropped below that of countries like Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago.
One of Colombia's efforts to combat this problem was signing the 1988 Vienna Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, and including chemicals and drug precursors in the list. This was a stronger response than seen globally as those substances are freely traded in the rest of the world. The actual consumption of the drug in Colombia is smaller than in the United States despite internal production being based in the country.
Given the fact that the population of the United States is the largest user of illegal drugs in the world, with one in six citizens claiming to have used cocaine in their life, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, after reviewing the efficiency of the actions taken by the Colombian government for more than 20 years, has called for cocaine consuming countries - mostly in Europe and North America - to take their share of responsibility and reduce demand for cocaine, explaining that there are limits to what the Andean governments can do if cocaine consumption continues unabated, a position that has been maintained by the Colombian government for many years and was later accepted by the United States government.
The Colombian National Police has captured and extradited drug lords at a rate of over 100 per year for the last 10 years and currently gives technical advice to 7 countries in Latin America and 12 in Africa. Drug traffickers have resisted those actions by killing five presidential candidates Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, Jaime Pardo Leal, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, Alvaro Gómez Hurtado and Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, by allegedly planning and financing the Palace of Justice siege that left 11 of the 25 Supreme Court Justices dead, by killing over 3,000 members of the Union Patriótica political party, and by assassinating countless police officers, judges and witnesses.
History of drug production
Marijuana
The marijuana drug trade was the gateway to what would eventually make Colombia’s drug industry so prevalent. In the 1960s, marijuana production was centralized in Mexico and Jamaica. Mexico had direct transports to the United States and were their main supplier of the plant. To counter increasing production and consumption, the government of the United States and the government of Colombia along with other countries initiated a campaign called the "war on drugs". Part of this campaign was a series of “eradication programs” which drove American consumers away from Mexican exports. With this new gap in the marijuana industry, Colombian growers took the opportunity to join the business. Colombian growers were successful due to the extensive rural regions that were negligible to the government.Cocaine
The scarcity of the coca industry and unique growing environment made cocaine production a very profitable industry for Colombia. Raw coca has specific cultivation needs that can only be fulfilled in a limited number of tropical countries. Similarly to the marijuana industry, cocaine producers set up in the depths of Colombian jungles where they could be left undetected and undisrupted. Between 1993 and 1999 Colombia became the main global producer of raw coca, as well as of refined cocaine. Two factors that allowed the coca business to boom in the 1990s: the end of the cold war depleted the funds of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia prompting them to turn to the illegal drug industry for revenue, and the promotion and protection of coca cultivation helped paramilitary groups sustain power with local support.The process of creating the drug was relatively simple and could be accomplished with minimal technology. The coca leaves were collected and then “soaked in gasoline and other chemicals to extract the coca base”. Which as of 2011 it was estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that 63,330 homes were involved in the cultivation process of the coca leaf. The next step is taking the extracted base and compressing it of all water until it's an “easy-to-handle brick containing about 50 percent cocaine”. This is the final part of the process that is then shipped to distributors. The value of the cocaine trade is assessed at $10 billion per year in U.S. dollars. Colombia's share of coca production is estimated at 43% of global production.
As of 2020 the area of coca bush cultivation in Colombia decreased by 7.1% but this was offset by increases in Peru 13% and Bolivia 15.3% which is where Colombia gets much of its raw cocaine materials from. Despite the decrease in cultivation land, Colombia still holds the largest share of coca bush cultivation accounting for roughly 61% of global cultivation. Further, despite the recent decrease in land Colombia's manufacturing of cocaine increased by 8% continuing its reign as the largest cocaine producer.
Heroin
Colombia has a long history of producing heroin, but this production has been decreasing significantly over the past several years as criminal groups have shifted their focus of production towards other drugs and other sources of trafficking. Most of the heroin produced in Colombia is derived from opium poppies grown in the southwestern region of the country, specifically in Nariño, which border Ecuador. The production process involved refining raw opium sap into morphine and then converting the morphine into heroin. According to the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime, the area of opium poppy cultivation in Colombia has decreased by 26% between 2019 and 2020, from 3,330 hectares to 2,460 hectares. This decline is a part of a larger regional trend, as the overall area of opium poppy cultivation in Latin America and the Caribbean decreased by 18% during the same period. According to UNODC, Colombia produced an estimated 1.5 metric tons of pure heroin in 2020. This represents a significant decrease from the peak production levels of 2016-2017, when Colombia was estimated to produce up to 9 metric tons of heroin.Cocaine production
Between 1993 and 1999 Colombia became the main global producer of raw coca, as well as of refined cocaine, and one of the major exporters of heroin.The value of the cocaine trade is assessed at $10 billion per year in U.S. dollars. Colombia's share of coca production is estimated at 43% of global production.
Effects
The effects of cocaine production range from environmental damage to effects on education, health and the country's economy.The environment is damaged through deforestation caused by clearing fields for plant cultivation. Soil erosion and chemical pollution also have effects on Colombia. The issues are difficult to address because of the wealth and power of drug traffickers.
Many plantations provide prostitutes to sustain their employees. Sexually transmitted diseases are spread at a rapid pace and contribute to the workers' inability to heal from the flesh wounds and their incapability of survival outside of this environment.
The few positive outcomes from the manufacturing of cocaine include temporarily providing a job for a family struggling financially and raising Colombia's GDP and standard of living. However, in February 2025 President Gustavo Petro stated the use of cocaine is no more serious than drinking whisky.