Cocaine-based cement: Ecuador’s project to destroy seized drugs

The fight against drug trafficking has been a matter of international interest for several decades now. Countries around the world have tried to implement measures to stop the production and distribution of illicit drugs, as well as to deal with the violence that this business generates.

Among those measures, it has also been considered what to do with the seizure of large amounts of drugs and narcotics. This issue has become a problem for several countries that function as a route for the distribution of those products or where various groups dedicated to the production of substances such as cocaine are housed.

(It may interest you: the US already has evidence of drug payments to obtain a place in total peace).

This is precisely the case of Ecuador, a region in which, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Only in the last two years the authorities managed to confiscate 400 tons of cocaine hydrochloride.

The Government of that country used the method of incineration as a traditional practice, but this technique was not effective in destroying large quantities of drugs. In fact, according to the Spanish media The countrythe Undersecretary of Substances Subject to Control of the Ministry of the Interior, Edmundo Mera, declared that incinerating 70 kilos of hydrochloride of said substance could take up to an hour in total.

However, not all the seized drugs can be eliminated by this method, as there are factors -such as size or presentation- that prevent the process from being made difficult.

That is why encapsulation also exists, a method in which drugs are pulverized and this is where the new government initiative comes in, which proposes mixing that powder with cement, sand and water, with the aim of producing concrete platforms.

“Ecuador is a pioneer in the process of destroying substances subject to control, through the method of ‘encapsulation“Commented the Ministry of the Interior through a publication on its official Twitter account.

(Also: Jhon Alex Castaño crashed in a small plane arriving in Paipa: this is known).

All this happens in a waste treatment plant located in Quitó. The measure implies that the hundreds of blocks that are subjected to approval tests every day, and then pulverized together with other materials, such as glass or expired medicines.

Then when they are finally mixed with other ingredients to generate the respective mixture that will later be used to create blocks or pieces of concrete.

“This procedure is cheaper, takes less time and does not affect the environment,” Pablo Ramírez, Ecuador’s Director of Anti-Drug Investigation told the news agency Reuters.

It should be noted that, according to The country, a judge must always be present at all times during the destruction of the drug. Either in the process of incineration or encapsulation. However, thanks to the agility that the latter provides, it is increasingly easier to get rid of the seized substances.

“We have been able to collect up to eight tons of drugs that comply with up to a thousand cases and have been destroyed in a single day,” Fabiola Gallardo, president of the Guayas Court of Justice, told the aforementioned outlet.

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