Peru’s anti-drug police eradicated some 65,000 marijuana plants in the country’s north-central Huanuco region, according to daily Peru.21.
The operation included 25 police officers working in Huanuco’s Chinchao district, the daily reported.
Police believe that all of the marijuana that was eradicated was going to be transported to Lima, where it would then be sold in nightclubs around the capital.
Under Peruvian law, possession of a small amount of marijuana and some other drugs is legal, but the sale of the drug is not.
Peru is well-known as a major drug producer. It is the world’s top producer of cocaine, which is produced using the coca leaf. And according to Cedro, the drug abuse prevention organization, there are now a few opium poppy plantations in small areas of Huanuco, San Martin, Amazonas and Cajamarca. Parts of Huanuco and San Martin were once major coca producers, but the main production has shifted south to the VRAEM area, a corridor straddling the regions of Junin, Ayacucho, Apurimac and north Cusco.
Peru’s government has a policy of forcefully eradicating illegal coca crops that grow in the country’s remote jungle regions.
