DAILY STAR
Colombia has a cocaine problem – it’s got too much of it.
Reports have claimed that blocks of unsold cocoa paste are piling up around the South American country, famed for being home to Pablo Escobar. Sales of the paste have slowed down and even dried up in many of the country’s cocaine-growing regions, plunging the communities that produce it into poverty.
Speaking to the New York Times, economist Felipe Tascón said the drug market had not before seen “such a dramatic downturn”. The outlet reports how the drop in demand is at least in part a byproduct of an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been locked in a decades-long conflict with the government.
The group used cocaine to finance its war, using local farmers to provide them with the leaves of the cocoa plant.
After FARC left the space, smaller criminal organisations are understood to have taken up the mantle.
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