CHEMICALS ELUDING CLINTON'S DRUG WAR

Free-trade Rules Permit Shipments Of 'Precursors'

MANAUS, Brazil -- Although the Clinton administration has declared a risky
and controversial $1.3 billion war against Latin America's cocaine trade,
it isn't fighting on what may be the easiest and most promising front.

While the administration is providing massive military and other aid to
help Colombia and other Andean nations stop coca growing, processing and
trafficking, experts say the chemicals needed to refine cocaine from coca
leaves continue to flow unhindered to drug labs. Each country involved
blames another for the problem.

"I don't remember in the past decade a systematic and massive campaign in
South America to control precursors,'' said Roger Rumrill, a Peru-based
expert in Andean narcotics production. "This is a contraband product and
many people are involved, ranging from businessmen to the government --
including police.''

In theory, it's much easier to interdict shipments of the chemicals used to
make cocaine than it is to ferret out cocaine smuggling. The companies that
make the chemicals, known as precursors, are well-known. They are usually
shipped by land or sea, and their bulk and modest value make it hard to
hide them.

So why not declare war on 55-gallon drums of sulfuric acid, acetone,
potassium permanganate and other chemicals chugging up the Amazon?

Not so fast. Global free-trade rules permit little regulation of chemicals
that have legitimate uses. And the same chemicals that are used to refine
cocaine have many legitimate uses, including water purification, so
shipments can't be seized unless authorities have reason to believe they're
intended for use in making cocaine.

The United States has asked South American countries to document who's
using these chemicals.

The effort to track the chemicals hasn't been very disciplined, however,
and seizures remain meager, despite years of encouragement by the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration and the State Department.

Failed Initiative

U.S. anti-drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey acknowledged in an interview that
effective measures to keep these chemicals out of the hands of cocaine
producers ``ain't there yet.'' As proof the initiative ``has been a
failure,'' McCaffrey noted that Colombia produced 520 metric tons of
cocaine last year.

To make cocaine, jungle drug-lab operators need lots of kerosene. It's
poured with water into plastic-lined pits filled with leaves from the coca
plant. Barefoot workers stomp the mixture into a mushy paste.

Next, sulfuric acid and potassium permanganate are added to dry and
condense the paste.

Solvents such as acetone are then used to dissolve the cocaine base, which
is poured or pressed through cloth to yield snowy white and highly
addictive cocaine hydrochloride crystals.

Colombian Defense Minister Luis Ramirez Acuna said these chemicals are
shipped to clandestine cocaine labs via canoes and riverboats on ``water
highways'' in the Amazon River system in Brazil and the Orinoco River
system in Venezuela.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Gen. Ismael Hurtado denies the charge.

U.S. Major Exporter

"Let's not forget that one of the biggest exporters of these chemicals is
the United States, not Venezuela or Brazil,'' Hurtado said. He said his
country, a major petroleum exporter and a leading manufacturer of solvents
used to make cocaine, has been cracking down hard on precursors.

Venezuelan police interdicted shipments of 75 tons of potassium
permanganate last year, according to government figures, plus 1,585 gallons
of solvents.

This year seizures are running lower, possibly because of tougher import
regulations.

Colombia says it sidelined 522,000 gallons of liquid precursors and almost
523 pounds of solid precursors this year. Colombian police closed 27
companies and indicted 59 people for related offenses. WHO'S TO BLAME?

Colombia blames Brazil, home to South America's biggest chemical industry,
particularly the vast free-trade zone in Manaus, where legitimately
imported chemicals are often repackaged and diverted to upriver drug labs.

According to Mauro Sposito, the head of Brazil's anti-drug operations in
the Amazon region, 256 companies in Manaus import chemicals that also could
be used to make cocaine for their manufacturing operations.

The U.S. State Department, in its March 2000 report on international
narcotics, said Argentina and Brazil are the leading makers of precursors.
Paraguay and Bolivia are transit points for the chemicals, it said, and
Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador are increasingly the hosts of
clandestine cocaine labs.

"Everybody needs to do more in this area, needs to be more aware of
chemical control as a potentially potent law enforcement tool,'' said a
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official. "We can include ourselves in
this area, too.''

Progress is being made in controlling one key precursor, potassium
permanganate -- a chemical used in water purification and cocaine
manufacture that is produced in only a dozen or so countries. Paperwork on
any shipment greater than 97 pounds is shared with authorities.

The DEA says more than 35 million pounds were tracked between April 1999
and September 2000, with 51 shipments stopped totaling almost 6.6 million
pounds, with 35 arrests. The effort is believed to have cut cocaine
production sharply in Bolivia.