PRESSURE IS ON IN COLOMBIA TO LEGALIZE DRUG TRAFFICKING

BOGOTA, Colombia - Long dismissed as the stuff of dope smokers'
fantasies, the idea of decriminalizing the production and use of drugs
appears to be winning support across Colombia, prompted in part by a
U.S.-backed attack on the nation's illicit drug crops.

The movement favoring a reduction or elimination of criminal penalties
for people involved in the drug trade is rapidly gaining support from
mainstream opinion makers and high-powered Colombian politicians,
although few are willing to predict whether it will produce any marked
change in the war on drugs.

"The problem is that the law of the marketplace is overtaking the law
of the state. We have to ask, is legalization a way out of this?"
former President Ernesto Samper said in an interview.

"We cannot continue to fight this war alone. If the consuming nations
do nothing to curb demand, to control money laundering, to halt the
flow of chemicals that supply the drug-production labs, then in a few
short years, the world is going to see legalization as the answer."

A bipartisan group of legislators introduced bills in Colombia's
congress this month on the themes of legalization and
decriminalization. The legislators said part of their motivation is
the harsh public reaction in Colombia to an intensified
herbicide-spraying campaign, funded by the United States, to eradicate
hundreds of thousands of acres of drug crops.

U.S. officials have made clear they oppose any move to decriminalize
drug production. The legislation, however, coincides with a decision
by the Bush administration to review its approach to combating drugs.

A U.S. delegation arrives in Bogota on Wednesday, headed by Marc
Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, to begin a
review of the counter-narcotics program known as Plan Colombia.
Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to visit Colombia on Sept.
11.

The keystone of U.S. support for Plan Colombia is a 10-month-old,
intensive campaign of aerial eradication aimed at the coca and opium
crops that are the source of nearly all the cocaine and heroin sold in
the United States. But Colombian politicians are increasingly
concerned about the potential environmental, economic and social
effects the eradication campaign is having.

In addition, the U.S.-backed Colombian military is locked in a heavy
offensive against the nation's largest guerrilla group, which both
governments accuse of supporting and profiting from the drug trade.
The guerrilla leadership advocates legalization of drug
consumption.

Under existing Colombian law, individuals legally can possess a
"personal dosage" of cocaine, hashish and marijuana. But some
legislators want to expand the law to halt the criminal prosecution of
peasant farmers who cultivate fewer than seven acres of coca and opium
plants.

"We are now a full year into Plan Colombia, and we can see the
results. Peasant farmers are wiped out economically, people are being
displaced, suffering is on the increase," said Sen. Rafael Orduz,
co-sponsor of one bill that would remove criminal penalties for small
landholders involved in illicit-crop production.

"Just because we support decriminalization does not mean we support
guerrillas or drug traffickers. We are tired of all of them. We want
to get rid of them," he added. "Attacking our poorest peasant farmers
is not the solution. The idea should not be to treat them as
criminals, because they are not. All they are trying to do is survive."

Sen. Viviane Morales, of the opposition Liberal Party, has introduced
a separate bill to legalize the production, distribution and
consumption of recreational drugs and place the industry under
government supervision. Political analysts give the bill little chance
of success, but they say Ms. Morales clearly has sparked a serious
debate over the issue.

"Colombia needs a national consensus to turn this theme into a
diplomatic initiative," said Carlos Holguin Sardi, leader of President
Andres Pastrana's Conservative Party. "We must start the ball rolling
so that the international community can reach formulas for
legalization as quickly as possible."

Even Enrique Santos Calderon, publisher of Colombia's largest daily
newspaper, El Tiempo, has joined the call for decriminalization. "I
believe the U.S. strategy to combat drugs is wrong-headed and
inefficient. Alternate legalization and decriminalization tactics
should be considered because the 'war against drugs' strategies have
failed miserably," he wrote last March in a Los Angeles Times commentary.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson has said she opposes any such action
"because I believe it could cause many problems for the international
community." However, she acknowledged recently that the amount of
acreage under illicit cultivation in Colombia has grown despite the
eradication effort.

Barry McCaffrey, former White House director of national drug control
policy, has lashed out against legalization proponents on several
occasions, particularly when hundreds of prominent international
business and political leaders, led by billionaire businessman George
Soros, published an open letter in 1998 calling for an international
review of the drug war.

"What is the result? U.N. agencies estimate the annual revenue
generated by the illegal drug industry at $400 billion, or the
equivalent of roughly 8 percent of total international trade," the
letter said. "This industry has empowered organized criminals,
corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security,
stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and moral
values. These are the consequences not of drug use per se, but of
decades of failed and futile drug war policies."

McCaffrey responded angrily. "Through a slick misinformation campaign,
these individuals perpetuate a fraud on the American people, a fraud
so devious that even some of the nation's most respectable newspapers
and sophisticated media are capable of echoing their falsehoods," he
said in congressional testimony.

Nevertheless, the international debate has intensified. Earlier this
month, The Economist magazine in Britain published a lengthy report
entitled, "The case for legalising drugs." The magazine cited
Prohibition in the United States, which banned the production and sale
of alcohol from 1920 to 1933, as an example of how criminal punishment
does not eliminate the use of psychotropic substances, but does tend
to strengthen criminal trafficking organizations.

Last month, Sir Keith Morris, who served as British ambassador to
Colombia from 1990-94, called for his nation to legalize drug
consumption, declaring that the war on drugs "is unwinnable, costly
and counterproductive."

In Colombia, proponents of plans to remove criminal penalties for drug
producers say their biggest fear is the international isolation that
would likely follow any such move.

When Samper was president from 1994 to 1998, they note, the United
States led a movement to punish Colombia diplomatically because of
Samper's alleged links to drug cartels. His presidential campaign
accepted $6 million from leaders of the Cali drug cartel, although
Samper said he had been unaware of the source of the donation.

Colombians are wary of taking any radical political action that could
cause another international backlash unless other nations do likewise.

"We are all, at the same time, victims as well as perpetrators of this
problem. All we're asking is that the international community look at
this situation seriously and approach it with an attitude of
co-responsibility," said Guillermo Gaviria, the governor of northern
Antioquia province.

"We've been fighting this drug war for almost 40 years now, and all
the formulas for attacking the producers and traffickers have not
produced the results we sought," he said. "We have not reduced the
flow of drugs. We have not reduced the amount of land under illicit
cultivation. And we certainly have not reduced the amount of suffering
our country is experiencing."