Llanos Orientales
More actions
| Llanos Orientales | |
|---|---|
| Eastern Plains | |
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 2.71, -73.71 |
| Country | Colombia |
| Provinces/States | Meta Department,Arauca Department |
| Area | 30,900 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Llanos Orientales (the Eastern Plains) is a cannabis growing region in eastern Colombia, on the plains of the Llanos and the piedmont where the Eastern Cordillera falls to them. It is made up of two growing areas: the Ariari, in the department of Meta, round the Serranía de La Macarena; and Arauca, in the north of the department of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela. In January 1973 a National Police report to the president named the eastern lowlands as one of five regions of marijuana cultivation in Colombia.[1]: In 2019 the anti-narcotics police counted Meta among the main marijuana-producing departments of the country.[2]
Geography
The region is made up of its two growing areas and takes in no land outside them. The Ariari covers five municipalities of Meta, Lejanías, Mesetas, El Castillo, Vistahermosa and La Macarena, on the piedmont and round the northern Serranía de La Macarena. Arauca covers four municipalities in the north of the department of Arauca: Saravena and Tame on the piedmont, and Arauquita and Puerto Rondón on the plains. The two areas lie about 320 km apart, so the region is drawn in two parts, of about 30,900 km² in all. The plains between them, in Casanare and eastern Meta, are outside the region.
The 1970s
In January 1979 the American magazine Time wrote that the Llanos were the emerging drug-cultivation area, where pruning had improved the original coarse green cannabis.[3] In March 1979 Ernesto Samper Pizano, president of the National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF), wrote that the area planted with marijuana had shifted from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta towards the Llanos Orientales, above all Arauca and Vichada.[4]: 250–251
In the Ariari, marijuana was planted in the Serranía de La Macarena and round Vistahermosa in the mid-1970s, in a boom that collapsed with prices around 1977 and gave way to coca.[5]: 58–59, 95[6]: 204 The anthropologist Anthony Henman, writing in 1978, sorted the marijuana of the trade into four kinds and grouped the plain green or brown kind, mango viche, as "Llanos green" and "Cauca green".[7]: 276
Since 2000
In a study of marijuana samples from four regions of Colombia published in 2009, leaf from Lejanías, in the Ariari, had the highest mean content of THC, 15.7 per cent; the authors suggested that the high figures from the Llanos and Cauca might point to the use of improved varieties.[8]: 237 The Ministry of Justice's drug report for 2017 listed Meta among the departments where the main growing zones lay.[9]: 78
About 239 hectares of marijuana were eradicated in the Ariari between 2007 and 2018, 220 of them in Lejanías, and about 12.6 hectares in Arauca between 2013 and 2017.[10]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Province | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Arauca | Arauca Department | Active |
| Ariari | Meta Department | Active |
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ Britto, Lina (2020). Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-32547-0.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "The Colombian Connection". Time. 29 January 1979. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ Cervantes Angulo, José (1980). La noche de las luciérnagas (in español). Bogotá: Plaza & Janés.
- ↑ Molano, Alfredo (1999) [1987]. Selva adentro: una historia oral de la colonización del Guaviare (in español). Bogotá: El Áncora Editores. ISBN 958-9012-02-7.
- ↑ Torres, María Clara (September–December 2021). "Arroz y coca: una modernización desigual y violenta en el Ariari, Colombia, 1950-1990". Análisis Político (in español). 34 (103): 193–224. doi:10.15446/anpol.v34n103.102174.
- ↑ Henman, Anthony (2019) [1978]. Mama coca (in español). Translated by Gabriel Iriarte; preface by Wade Davis (8th ed.). Popayán: Editorial Universidad del Cauca. ISBN 978-958-732-345-0.
- ↑ Florian R., Néstor M.; Parada A., Fabián; Garzón M., William F. (2009). "Estudio del contenido de canabinoides en muestras de marihuana (Cannabis sativa L.) cultivadas en varias regiones de Colombia". Vitae (in español). 16 (2): 237–244. ISSN 0121-4004.
- ↑ Observatorio de Drogas de Colombia (2017). Reporte de drogas de Colombia 2017 (PDF) (Report) (in español). Bogotá: Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho. Retrieved 20 October 2026 – via COPOLAD.
- ↑ Ministerio de Defensa Nacional. "Erradicación". Portal de Datos Abiertos de Colombia (dataset) (in español). Retrieved 3 November 2026.