Coca’s Return and the American Overdose Fallout

Colombian coca cultivation fell dramatically between 2000 and 2015, a period that saw intense U.S.-backed eradication and interdiction efforts. That progress reversed in 2015, when peace talks and legal rulings in Colombia opened enforcement gaps. Coca cultivation has since increased to record levels, while cocaine-related overdose deaths in the United States also rose sharply. We estimate how much of that rise can be causally attributed to Colombia’s new coca boom. Leveraging the unforeseen coca supply shock and cross-county differences in pre-shock cocaine exposure, we find that the surge in supply caused an immediate rise in overdose mortality in the U.S. The implied annual loss in U.S. statistical-life value is about $45,000 per hectare of cultivation in Colombia. We estimate that on the order of 1,000–1,500 additional U.S. deaths per year can be attributed to Colombia’s coca boom. At Colombia’s 2022 cultivation level (over 230,000 hectares), the cocaine supply shock may impose on the order of $10 billion per year in U.S. costs via overdose fatalities.