U.N. REPORTS COCAINE, HEROIN USE DOWN

VIENNA, Austria -- Cocaine and heroin abuse is diminishing worldwide, but
consumption of amphetamines is increasing, the United Nations said in a
report released yesterday.

The report, published by the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention, said the increase in amphetamine usage in the 1990s was mainly
in Europe and Asia, with developed countries the main suppliers.

In the United States, drug use fell 40 percent from 1985 to 1999, with
cocaine use falling 70 percent.

Officials with the drug agency said much of the reduction was a result of
increased government spending on prevention and treatment. The amount
climbed from $855 million in 1985 to $5.6 billion in 1999.

Across the globe, an estimated 180 million people were consuming drugs in
the late 1990s -- more than 4 percent of all people age 15 and above -- the
report said.

But not only is cocaine and heroin abuse declining, the area where poppy is
grown for opium -- the source of heroin -- is at its lowest level since
1988, the report said.

The report targeted Afghanistan as the provider of more than 75 percent of
the world's opium, but drug control officials praised neighboring Pakistan
for its success in ending poppy production.

"Pakistan is this year's big success story," Bernard Frahi, regional
director of the U.N. Drug Control Program, told reporters in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad. Pakistan produced 800 tons of opium in 1979 but only a
negligible amount in 2000, he said.

Among other positive developments in the 172-page report:

- - Bolivia has reduced the area under illicit coca production by 78 percent
since 1997.

- - Authorities in Peru, where much of the world's cocaine traditionally
originates, have cut illicit exports of the drug by 50 percent during the
past decade.