by Our Foreign Desk

Narcotics production is booming despite the US-led wars on drugs and terror, a US government agency admitted this week.

A report by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy revealed that, in Colombia, the cultivation of coca leaf — the natural source of cocaine — soared by 39 per cent in 2014.

Last year, there were 112,000 hectares (about 276,000 acres) of land devoted to coca production in the South American country.

The agency’s estimate of cocaine production, based on average crop yields, jumped 32 per cent to 245 tonnes.

In Afghanistan, a bumper harvest of opium resin, the raw ingredient of heroin, is expected thanks to a new strain of poppy that is claimed to be twice as productive as existing varieties.

Opium traffickers are reportedly distributing seed for the new super-poppy to growers for planting this year.

Kandahar province anti-narcotics chief Gul Mohammad Shukran said that the new seed yields “better drug plants, which require less water and have a faster growth time.”

The former Taliban government eradicated opium production, but since the US-led invasion most of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, authorities seek to blame the booming trade on insurgent forces fighting the Nato occupation.

Production reached a record high last year, up by 17 per cent on 2013, and is expected to increase by between seven and 22 per cent this year, reaching 7,800 tonnes.

The value of Afghan opium production is estimated at £2 billion per year.