The big illegal drug business is in opiates. Here Latin America is being marginalised by the Asian producers. Although Latin America does have a small heroin production capacity, there is no evidence that it is increasing.
There is, on the other hand, clear evidence that Latin American countries are intercepting more drugs. The question is whether their seizures are rising in percentage terms as well as absolute terms. The evidence from the stability of prices suggests that the authorities are not yet intercepting more than marginal amounts of illegal drugs.
The big change the UN reports in its 2003 Global Illicit Drug Trends Report is the 30% fall in Colombian coca acreage between November 2001 and December 2002. The overall figure, however, masks a geographical shift in cultivation, mostly northeast, but also to Narino state in the west.
The heart of the Colombian coca business used to be Putumayo, which borders Ecuador. Yet here, the coca acreage dropped by 33,000ha, and in neighbouring Caquetá it fell by 6,000ha. On the other hand, Guaviare, which sits above Caquetá, is now the most important coca growing area in the country: it increased acreage by 2,000ha, to 27,000ha.
The second-biggest production area is now Nariño on the Pacific coast west of Putumayo, which saw an even greater increase (of 8,000ha ) in acreage. The other big growing areas are in the mountains of Bolivar and Antioquia in the north of the country and along the Venezuelan border in Norte de Santander and Arauca.
In Colombia, coca is harvested four times a year. The UN admits that its forecast for output is probably on the low side because it does not include uncultivated coca plantations, which it puts at producing 480t of coca base a year. The opium poppy produces two harvests a year in Colombia.
Prices and consumption. What is interesting is how steady coca prices have been, despite what the UN reckons are quite substantial variations in output. The price of coca base in Colombia did jump in 1994, to US$1,500 per kg, but since then it has been pretty stable for the past eight years, at US$850 per kg.
On the other hand, in Bolivia, where eradication efforts, arguably, have been most successful, the price of a kilo of coca leaf in constant dollars has more than quadrupled, from US$1.28 in 1996 to US$5.60 last year.
Colombia leads the world in cocaine production, with 580t, followed by Peru with 160t and Bolivia with 60t.
Opium. The UN reckons that both Mexico and Colombia are still marginal opium producers. Mexico's production is nudging Colombia's likely 2002 output of 50t.
Both countries, though, are a long way behind Afghanistan, which, the UN reckons, produced 3,400t in 2002.
First in interceptions. Mexico is the most difficult country for the heroin traffickers to do business in, the UN reckons. It notes that more heroin was intercepted in Mexico than anywhere else in the world in 2001.
In that year 1,838kg of heroin were intercepted in Mexico. This compares with 683kg in the US; 383kg in Kenya and 249kg in Nigeria.
Among Latin American countries, Mexico intercepted 10 times as much heroin as Brazil (which seized 146kg), and 20 times as much as Colombia (which captured 86kg).
Mexico was the fourth-biggest nabber of cocaine in the world, grabbing 30t in 2001. This was behind the US (106t); Colombia (73t), and Spain (33t).
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