UN HAILS DRUG WAR SUCCESS, TOUTS TREATMENT PROGRAMS

Illicit Production Now Centered In 3 Nations

LONDON -- Most of the world's illegal hard drugs are produced in just three
nations, as growth rates in production and consumption decline elsewhere.
But amphetamine trafficking is on the rise, the United Nations said Monday.

In its annual report, released at a London news conference, the UN Office
for Drug Control and Crime Prevention said Afghanistan and Myanmar together
account for 90 percent of illicit opium production, with Afghanistan alone
responsible for three-fourths.

About 22,500 acres of opium poppy were cultivated in Afghanistan in 1999,
an increase of more than 40 percent from the previous year, the report
said. Afghanistan is mostly under control of an Islamist fundamentalist
group, the Taliban. Myanmar, formerly Burma, is ruled by a military
dictatorship.

The UN report said Colombia accounts for two-thirds of coca leaf production
and 80 percent of global cocaine manufacture.

It played up successes in the fight against drugs and suggested that
expensive programs of drug treatment and prevention do work.

Studies in the U.S., it said, show that most heroin and cocaine users
remain drug-free one year after undergoing treatment. The overall use among
people in treatment programs declined as much as two-thirds. That
corresponded, the report said, with a rise in spending on research,
prevention and treatment programs from $900 million in 1985 to $5.6 billion
in 1999.

The report said heroin use and related crime were cut in half among users
in Britain who underwent treatment.

"The strongest growth in trafficking in the 1990s was for amphetamine-type
stimulants," the report said. "Growth rates of heroin and cocaine seizures
declined in the 1990s compared to the 1980s."

It said seizures of amphetamines rose by 18 percent between 1990 and 1998,
while heroin seizures were up 5 percent, marijuana and hashish 4 percent,
and cocaine 2 percent.

The report said global coca leaf production and cocaine manufacture fell by
20 percent between 1992 and 1999, reversing the upward trend of the 1980s.

The area under opium poppy cultivation dropped by 17 percent between 1990
and 1999, and illicit opium production was down 15 percent, according to
the report.

Pino Arlacchi of Italy, head of the UN program, announced the report at a
news conference beside the Thames River after British law-enforcement
officers gave a demonstration of speedboats they are using to capture drug
traffickers.

Arlacchi's management of the program has recently come under fire within
his agency. Michael von der Schulenburg, director of operations, resigned
last December because of differences with Arlacchi.

Arlacchi has dismissed his critics as opponents of "dynamic reform and bold
initiatives" in the organization.

His report estimates that 180 million people worldwide consumed illicit
drugs in the late 1990s. This included 144 million for marijuana and
hashish, 29 million for amphetamines, 14 million for cocaine, 9 million for
heroin and 4.5 million for other opiates. The figures add up to more than
180 million because some use more than one drug.

The report said that heroin use in Western Europe has stabilized or gone
down and that cocaine consumption in the U.S. has dropped. But drug abuse
is increasing in many drug transit countries.

At the same time, the report said, several countries that were once
significant producers of illegal drugs have become drug-free or nearly so.
These include Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iran and Turkey.