New Strain of Coca Plant Yields More Cocaine
Colombian drug traffickers have created a new strain of coca plant that can yield up to four times more cocaine, the Scotsman reported Aug. 31.
Officials found the new plants in an anti-drug sting on the mountainsides of the Sierra Nevada on Colombia's Caribbean coast, long known as a drug-growing region.
"This is a very tall plant," said Colonel Diego Leon Caicedo of the anti-narcotics police. "It has a lot more leaves and a lighter color than other varieties."
According to Camilo Uribe, a toxicologist who analyzed the coca, "The quality and percentage of hydrochloride from each leaf is much better, between 97 and 98 percent. A normal plant does not get more than 25 percent, meaning that more drugs and of a higher purity can be extracted."
Experts said traffickers developed the new plant by using strains from Peru and crossbreeding them with potent Colombian varieties. Genetic engineering was also used in the process.
The new strain of coca plant is also resistant to gliphosate chemicals that are used to eradicate drugs crops in Colombia.
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