Provincia de Ocaña
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| Provincia de Ocaña | |
|---|---|
| Subregión Occidental | |
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Northern Colombia |
| Geography | |
| Country | Colombia |
| Province/State | Norte de Santander Department |
| Coordinates | 8.41, -73.23 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 7,800 km² |
| Terrain | Ten municipalities of western Norte de Santander; approximately the Subregión Occidental (Provincia de Ocaña) |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Provincia de Ocaña is a cannabis growing area in the west of the department of Norte de Santander, in north-eastern Colombia. The department's Subregión Occidental, which the departmental government also calls the Provincia de Ocaña, is made up of ten municipalities: Ábrego, Cáchira, Convención, El Carmen, Hacarí, La Esperanza, La Playa de Belén, Ocaña, San Calixto and Teorama.[1]: 3 A 2016 study of the drug problem in the department, by the Ministry of Justice and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, traces marijuana in Norte de Santander back to 1998, when four hectares were eradicated in Ocaña. It places a second nucleus of coca in La Esperanza and Cáchira, where marijuana crops had also been recorded.[2]: 15, 47 The police reported a marijuana plantation on a farm four hours from Ocaña in 2014 and another in rural Ábrego in 2015,[3][4] and the Ministry of Defence's eradication data list marijuana eradicated in five of the province's municipalities between 2012 and 2018.[5] In 2019 a presentation of the national drug observatory, citing the anti-narcotics police, named Norte de Santander among the main producing departments of the country.[6]
Plantations reported since 2000
In October 2014 the National Police reported that a mobile squadron of the Norte de Santander police had found some 6,000 coca plants and 4,000 marijuana plants growing among plantains on a farm in the vereda (rural district) of La Allanada, in the corregimiento (a rural division of a municipality) of Pueblo Nuevo, four hours by vehicle from the town of Ocaña. More than 200 trees had been felled over four hectares to make room for the plants. A rustic structure on the farm was used to dry the marijuana.[3]
In January 2015 the police reported a marijuana plantation in the vereda of Montenegro, seven hours from the town of Ábrego. More than 100 trees had been felled over three hectares to grow about 1,500 marijuana plants. The farm also had a rustic structure for drying and processing the crop and a collection and processing centre holding 500 kilograms of marijuana of the cripy type, ready for sale.[4] In February 2015 the police reported a processing site in Ábrego holding 6,150 kilograms of marijuana. They said the marijuana had been grown and then dried, pressed and packed, to be sent by a route running from the vereda of Montenegro through San Martín in Cesar, Bucaramanga, Pamplona, Chitagá and Fortul into Venezuela.[7]
The newspaper La Opinión reported in March 2016 that at least five tonnes of cripy marijuana had been seized in rural Ábrego in the first three months of the year, more than two tonnes of it at a collection centre in the vereda of Los Indios, by the anti-narcotics police and the army's 30th Brigade. The paper described a proliferation of marijuana crops in the rural part of the municipality, where marijuana had become one of the most common crops while onion and tomato were still grown. A resident of Los Indios said the vereda had long been a centre of marijuana growing, "de hasta fincas enteras" ("even of whole farms"), in mountain land six to eight hours from the town. An army battalion commander said marijuana had also been seized in El Tabaco and La Soledad.[8] In April 2016 the same paper reported that the departmental government's secretariat had pointed to an "exorbitante" (exorbitant) increase in the hectares of cripy in Ábrego; the article gave no figure.[9]
Eradication figures
Crops other than coca were recorded in Norte de Santander only through eradication operations. The 2016 study's marijuana series begins with the four hectares eradicated in Ocaña in 1998, followed by occasional entries of no more than five hectares. From 2013 the eradicated area rose: 10.5 hectares in Cáchira and La Esperanza that year and 15 hectares the next year, mainly in Ocaña, Durania, Ábrego and La Esperanza. The study found the eradications concentrated in municipalities with land in the foothills of the Cuchilla de Espartillo and the Páramo de Cinero.[2]: 47 According to the study, the department's police said that a considerable number of marijuana crops had appeared in recent times in Ábrego and in Durania (a municipality outside the province) and were supplying the department.[2]: 155–156
The Ministry of Defence's open data list 44 entries of marijuana eradicated in Norte de Santander between December 2007 and September 2018, about 62 hectares in all. Of these, 35 entries, about 47 hectares, are in the province, dated from February 2012 to September 2018: Ábrego (about 16 hectares), Ocaña (13), La Esperanza (11), Cáchira (6) and Teorama (1). In the province, two entries are of four hectares each (Ábrego in June 2014 and Ocaña in January 2016); every other entry is smaller. The department's entries for 2015 add up to 20.8 hectares, 10.5 of them in Ábrego, more than in any other year. The remaining entries are in Durania, Tibú, Chitagá, Arboledas, Salazar and Sardinata.[5]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
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See also
References
- ↑ Gobernación de Norte de Santander (2025). Informe Técnico de Rendición de Cuentas de la Subregión de Ocaña (PDF) (Report) (in español). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho; Oficina de las Naciones Unidas contra la Droga y el Delito (December 2016). Caracterización regional de la problemática asociada a las drogas ilícitas en el departamento de Norte de Santander (PDF) (Report) (in español). Bogotá: Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "En un Bosque Nativo en zona rural descubrimos cultivos de mata de coca y marihuana" (in español). Policía Nacional de Colombia. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "La Policía Nacional descubrió 2.5 hectáreas de matas de marihuana" (in español). Policía Nacional de Colombia. 16 January 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ministerio de Defensa Nacional. "Erradicación". Portal de Datos Abiertos de Colombia (dataset) (in español). Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Observatorio de Drogas de Colombia (June 2019). Experiencia en la recolección de información sobre oferta y consumo: ODC. Taller para Fortalecer a los Observatorios Nacionales sobre Drogas de América Latina y el Caribe: Cuarta Edición (in español). Comisión Interamericana para el Control del Abuso de Drogas, Organización de los Estados Americanos. slide 21. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Incautadas más de seis toneladas de marihuana" (in español). Policía Nacional de Colombia. 9 February 2015. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Ábrego: en medio del cultivo y el consumo de marihuana cripy". La Opinión (in español). 26 March 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Cultivos de coca en Norte de Santander crecieron 45%". La Opinión (in español). 20 April 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2026.