International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2018/Spring 2019 | Page 6

Coca and Cocaine: Looking Ahead
recovered 1.4 metric tons. In May another 2.4 metric tons were seized, once again
in Spain. June saw French police and gendarmes capture 1.5 metric tons in the
southwestern Landes region. In July, German customs officers intercepted 3.8 tons
of 90% pure product.
At the same time, in Le Havre, officers confiscated 1.3 metric tons of cocaine.
The arrival of summer did not slacken the pace. In August, in a Lithuanian
port on the Baltic, more than half a metric ton of cocaine was discovered. In
short, in the space of six months in 2017, more than 13 metric tons of cocaine
were neutralized across just five European countries. The total retail market value
of the material seized was 850 million euros, and this was just the tip of the
iceberg ...
Another point to remember is that the cocaine on sale in the streets of Europe
is less and less cut with other substances. It is not uncommon to find cocaine
powder of nearly 40% purity, and what is more, the price is dropping to
somewhere in the region of 50-55 euros per gram. On top of this, there is also
fierce competition among dealers in an ultra-saturated European cocaine market.
The holding warehouses in Spain are full. Traffickers adapt to the circumstances,
even if it means making huge price reductions in order to shift their product. If
the hugely optimistic 2017 UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
annual report is to be believed, even with a large pinch of salt, there are 17 million
regular consumers of cocaine in the world. 3 And what are we to make of recent
illicit attempts to grow coca plants outside the three principal producer countries,
Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia?
Drug traffickers in Ecuador have been trying to set up large-scale coca-growing
projects in the country regularly for at least twenty years, most notably
in the provinces of Sucumbíos, Pichincha, Pastaza, and Esmeraldas. At the
same time, in May 2017, a coca plantation was discovered in the municipality of
Esquipulas del Norte in Olancho Department, Honduras. Other Latin American
countries have experienced the same phenomenon. In 2013, Panama hit the front
pages over illegal coca crops found in Chucurtí, close to Puerto Obaldia on the
Caribbean coast, not to mention the discovery of coca plantations in Chiapas,
Mexico, in 2014.
So why does international legislation continue to confuse a plant (coca) 4
with one of its derivatives? For a more accurate idea of the role of international
regulations and the issues involved, further clarity is required. Here, we will look
at the situation of France and Bolivia.
3 World Drug Report 2017, (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2017), 25.
4 According to the European Drug Report 2017: Trends and Developments, from the European Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in 2015, 76 kilograms of coca leaves were seized
across all 28 countries of the European Union.
3