Business is business.......... David Goldman Mar 9, 2001 - 02:21 PM War Against Colombia Cocaine Said to Be Weakening Heroin Effort By Will Weissert Associated Press Writer BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Washington's $1.3 billion war on Colombian cocaine has had an unexpected consequence: it has forced the scaling back of efforts to stop this country's flourishing heroin trade. Strikes against poppy plantations high in the Andes have been on hold since December because airplanes and helicopters used in aerial eradication missions were reassigned to the U.S.-financed push against coca crops. U.S. officials are calling the suspension temporary. But the halt is frustrating Colombian police and angering some U.S. lawmakers concerned about growing heroin production here. The world's leading cocaine producer, Colombia now exports more heroin than Asian producers Thailand and Pakistan and supplies 70 percent of an expanding U.S. heroin market, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. At a hearing in Washington last week, Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, raised questions about the poppy suspension. He warned that "more American youngsters caught up in the current heroin crisis here at home will die needlessly for lack of an effective U.S. heroin strategy directed at Colombia." DEA Administrator Donnie Marshall said successful heroin fighting efforts in Asia and years of battling cocaine in Colombia had unwittingly pushed Colombian traffickers into a booming U.S. heroin market. Colombia still produces nearly 100 times as much cocaine as heroin. Cocaine produced here accounts for about 90 percent of the U.S. market and 75 percent of the world market. But U.S. heroin use has doubled in the last five years, while casual cocaine use has dropped 70 percent in the last decade, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Concern about heroin could dampen the enthusiasm over what U.S. officials are calling a successful start to coca eradication under Washington's $1.3 billion aid package. The United States is providing troop training and combat helicopters to escort crop dusters over southern coca plantations that are often guarded by armed rebels. By early February, some 62,000 acres - nearly a fifth of Colombia's estimated coca crop - had been sprayed with chemical herbicides, U.S. officials say. Gen. Gustavo Socha, head of Colombia's antinarcotics police force, complained the aggressive attack on coca is undercutting the war on heroin. Whereas his forces wiped out a record 22,700 acres of opium plants last year, Socha says he'll be lucky to kill more than 15,000 acres this year - a drop of more than a third. A State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that poppy eradication has been temporarily halted because aircraft were needed in coca-growing areas and due to bad weather. He said the program would resume by early May. But Col. Patino Fonseca, who coordinates Colombia's spraying operations, said he had orders to halt poppy missions for "an unknown period of time." Fonseca said last year's operations were so successful that some heroin traffickers were forced to move into Peru to safeguard their plants. Critics of the U.S.-backed fumigation policy say even a renewed poppy eradication program will do little good. "Coca, marijuana, heroin, whichever drug you try to wipe out by spraying will result in failure, said Ricardo Vargas, a Colombian researcher who has written a book on the country's drug policy. "No matter how many planes come, more plants will always be planted." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">Make good on the promise you made at graduation to keep in touch. Classmates.com has over 14 million registered high school alumni--chances are you'll find your friends! </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/l3joGB/DMUCAA/4ihDAA/xrOVlB/TM"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Please let us stay on topic and be civil. To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org OM Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
