Coca Crop Acreage Falls to 20-Year Low
From Times Wire Reports
Peru, the world’s No. 2 cocaine producer, said the amount of Peruvian land devoted to growing coca -- the drug’s raw material -- was at its lowest in 20 years.
A surge in voluntary eradication in the last quarter of 2003 helped Peru scrap 27,965 acres of illegal coca crop last year, said Nils Ericsson, the country’s anti-drug chief.
“With that reduction, the total amount of coca areas is [77,000 acres], the lowest in the last 20 years,” he said.
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