Koyaanisqatsi –
June 27, 2025 – An estimated 25 million people used cocaine worldwide in 2023 — up from 17 million a decade earlier. Production jumped by 34 percent from 2022. Marijuana is the most used drug, followed by opioids and amphetamines. But it is the cocaine market that continues to break records year after year.
The coca plant, the main ingredient for cocaine, is primarily cultivated in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Colombia drove the recent increase in illegal cocaine production because of an expansion of coca cultivation areas and better yields from each acre. In Colombia, farmers strip coca leaves by hand and mix them with gasoline and other chemicals to produce bricks of coca paste. Traffickers purchase the paste, which is then processed into cocaine in labs across Latin America.
