DRUG-ABUSE A PROBLEM IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- After struggling for decades to stop its drug exports
from reaching the hands of addicts abroad, Colombia is now trying to cope
with a growing domestic drug-abuse problem.

Surging heroin production in Colombia has made the drug cheaper and more
available than ever before. Cultivation of heroin-producing poppy was
almost nonexistent here a decade ago.

Now, with about 15,000 acres being grown along the slopes of the Andes,
Colombia is supplying about three-fourths of the heroin consumed in the
United States. But much of it remains in Colombia.

Although Colombia's rates of heroin use remain far lower than in the United
States and Europe, a survey completed last month by August Perez, a
clinical psychologist heading a presidential program to fight domestic drug
abuse, has raised alarms regarding heroin use.

"We have seen that consumption has doubled in the last five years," Perez
said Wednesday.

The survey of 200,000 Colombian students between the ages of 10 and 24 --
the most exhaustive drug-use study of its kind here _ projects that as many
as 26,000 people in this age range have tried heroin nationally. The last
study, done in 1996, found only about 10,000 heroin users. Perez calls that
about half of today's estimate because of differences in the two studies'
methodologies.

Perez said actual drug use in that age group is probably higher than his
new study determined because students tend to have lower drug abuse rates
than dropouts -- a large number in Colombia because poverty forces them to
work.

Perez said there are about 4 million students in the age group he sampled.
The country's total population is about 40 million.

"Heroin has not reached an epidemic stage here, but within another five
years I am sure we will have a heroin problem just as serious as in the
United States," said Dr. Monica Olmos, one of Colombia's few drug treatment
specialists.

Perez' new study wasn't all bad news, however.

More than 88 percent of the youths surveyed have not tried any drugs. Use
of cocaine and marijuana, still the most common illegal drugs, is static.
And basuco, a highly addictive form of cocaine, is declining in popularity.

For a country that has devoted so much energy to fighting drug exports,
Colombia has a permissive policy about drug use at home. Buying, selling or
producing drugs like marijuana, heroin or cocaine is illegal, but in 1994
the Constitutional Court legalized possession of small "personal doses."

Critics say that policy has fueled drug use. Some believe it has also
spawned government indifference toward the need to treat addicts.

"It is legal to take drugs here in Colombia, and left to personal choice,"
Perez said. "The other face of that is, if you get into trouble with drug
addiction, it is up to you to get out of it."

There are only a handful of public treatment centers in Colombia today, and
no plans to build more, Perez added.

Ecstasy, the synthetic pill popular in U.S. and European dance clubs, is
also making inroads, along with amphetamines and rohypnol, a tranquilizer
sometimes called the "date rape" drug. In a reversal of the usual
trafficking routes, these drugs are mostly smuggled into the country from
the United States and Europe.

"We concentrate so much on keeping drugs from leaving the country, but we
rarely do anything to stop them from coming in," said Perez.