U.N. ANTI-DRUG OFFICIAL PREDICTS END OF COCAINE, OPIUM TRADES

BANGKOK, Oct. 12 (Reuters) -- The man in charge of the world's fight
against illegal drugs said on Thursday the war was being won and he
believed world production of opium and cocaine could be eliminated within
the next eight years.

Pino Arlacchi, who took on the mafia in his native Italy and is now
executive director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention, told Reuters: ``We are winning. And we have to believe that we
can win and eliminate drugs.''

He said strong progress was being made on cocaine and heroin, and while the
situation concerning synthetic drugs was less encouraging this did not
change the overall positive picture.

Arlacchi faces a David and Goliath struggle. His agency has an annual
budget of around $70 million against the $400 billion estimated annual
turnover of the drugs trade.

But Arlacchi said in an interview that despite his modest resources, he was
confident that a 1998 U.N. pledge to eradicate cultivation of the opium
poppy and coca bush by 2008 could be fulfilled ahead of schedule.

``The results have been beyond any expectations. For the first time, the
overall surface under cultivation of illegal crops in the world has
decreased substantially,'' he said.

``It has decreased by 15 percent. This is the result of our strategy just
two years after it was launched. This is an unprecedented result.''

Arlacchi said cocaine production had been largely eliminated in Bolivia,
and opium production almost eradicated in Vietnam, with strong progress
also in Laos and Myanmar.

But Arlacchi said the world faced a growing threat from synthetic drugs
like ecstasy and amphetamines, with consumption growing fast in Asia and
still at a high level in the West.

``The picture is not so positive when we look at the synthetic drugs. The
picture is quite gloomy,'' he said.

He said consumption of amphetamines was in its first growth phase in Asia,
and was expected to stabilise, following the pattern seen in Europe.
``There will be a levelling off if the proper and correct measures are
adopted and taken,'' he said.

Arlacchi was in Bangkok for an international conference on narcotics
discussing strategies for making the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) a drug-free area by 2015.

He insisted that action could be taken to reduce drug production in
``rogue'' nations like Afghanistan and Myanmar without having to provide
support for the regimes there.

``We know how to work in these countries while avoiding giving support to
authoritarian, undemocratic regimes that are enemies of human rights,''
Arlacchi said.

Afghanistan and Myanmar are the world's leading suppliers of heroin, and
Myanmar is also a major source of amphetamines.

Arlacchi said his strategy in fighting heroin and cocaine was based on
persuading farmers to grow legal crops instead. This could be done by
education, as well as by providing incentives such as better healthcare,
infrastructure and communications.

``We must simply show them that they can make just as much money from
alternative cultivation,'' he said.

``Farmers can make much more money cultivating wheat or growing fruit,
vegetables and so on. Most of the money is appropriated by traffickers who
exploit the tremendous mark up of the heroin trade. Farmers get very little
for the opium poppy.''

But as well as offering the carrot of better income, countries also had to
threaten farmers with the stick of stern action if they failed to give up
drug production, he said.

``We learned by our previous failures that a limited amount of coercion is
necessary,'' Arlacchi said.

He said his fight against drugs, both when battling the mafia and in his
U.N. role, was motivated by the basic fact that they were dangerous to
health and encouraged violence and corruption.

``We should not accept drugs as a component of everyday life,'' he said.
``We never accepted diseases. We fought against diseases, and we should
fight against drugs.''

He said suggestions that the war on drugs was doing more harm than good, by
destroying the livelihoods of farmers, damaging the environment and
threatening human rights, were ``deeply unfair.''

``The fight against drugs is a fight for human rights,'' he said. ``We
represent the 30 million people addicted to heroin and cocaine, and another
30 million who ... have their brains damaged forever by synthetic drugs. We
fight for their human rights.''