President of Colombia Gustavo Petropublished this Saturday an extensive assessment of the current situation in the cocaine market and its structural transformation due to a sharp increase in consumption fentanyl in the usaan emergency that increases drug-related violence in Ecuador, such as the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

“The cocaine market collapsed in the US, replaced by the worst, fentanylwhich already kills 100,000 people a year,” the president explained in a message posted on his X social media account, formerly Twitter.

This figure of 100,000 deaths is provided by a federal agency of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and refers to total overdose deaths in 2021although the agency notes that two-thirds of deaths are attributable to fentanyl overuse.

That is why the structure of the cocaine market has changed direction. In the past, labs and crops were sent north across the Pacific or into the Caribbean. Now they’re heading north.”they leave the coast and enter the other side of the Andean range in the Amazon jungle.

Thus, Petro estimates that the largest coca-growing area is no longer the Pacific Nariño region. Now “this is a strip of 10 kilometers along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border, on the Colombian side”, in two directions: first from Brazil to Europe, passing through Africa, or from Ecuador and Peru to East Asia, Japan and Australia.

Fentanyl, adds Petro, is “the cause of the fall in the price of coca leaf in the areas designated for its export to the United States and the armed organizations based there.” replace the lost profits from cocaine with illegal gold, extortion and kidnapping against the same population of the region.

“That is why, from a peaceful country, Ecuador surpassed Colombia in violence and Perhaps that’s why they killed presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.Colombian President added.

The assassination of a 59-year-old presidential candidate, and just days before the election, shocked the whole of Ecuador, which has been suffering for years from a rise in crime related to The emergence of international drug trafficking organizations.

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Insecurity and the fight against these groups were the two points he most influenced during his campaign, with proposals that were reminiscent of some of the policies imposed by Naib Bukele in El Salvador, for example, the construction of new prisons or the militarization of the security system of citizens..

“Ecuador is a drug state,” Fernando Villavicencio continued.who was a trade unionist and later a journalist, a profession for which he became famous, accusing former President Rafael Correa and his government of corruption.

spread of violence

Continuing with this scenario, Petro believes that, based on this change, “the Paraguayan and Uruguayan mafias seek to build an illegal economy in Bolivia and it is possible that now cocaine laboratories are located in Europe compete on quality in the face of the invasion of chemicals and fentanyl.”

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Finally, Petro pointed out that Colombia, unable to produce fentanyl due to a lack of industrial resources, could have “avoided” this crisis, although it asked the authorities prepare to “counteract” the effect of consumption the drug in youth, before completing his own historical survey of drug use in relation to prevailing ideologies.

“From the marijuana of welfare capitalism and its rebellious youth, we have moved on to cocaine, the drug of rivalry and neoliberalism; and now we inject the drug of death, fentanyl: drug of capitalism climate crisis and war“.

Europe Press