Colombia: a new president, an old counter-narcotics strategy

By Adriaan Alsema

Colombia’s president-elect Ivan Duque wants to aggressively combat the production of cocaine, but will it have an effect other than violence? Duque met with Prosecutor General Nestor Humberto Martinez on Friday while preparing to take over power from outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos on August 7. Duque and Martinez both support an aggressive anti-drugs policy and will be in charge of Colombia’s biggest-ever drug production problem; coca cultivation reached a record 188,000 hectares in 2017 to illegally cater a global market of more than 17 million annual cocaine consumers.