GLOBAL DRUG PROBLEM GETS GLAMOROUS TWIST

U.S. Report Warns Of Harmful New Trends

Washington - Heroin chic, a pernicious belief that dance club drug
ecstasy is safe and growing cocaine use in Europe are insidious trends
identified in the U.S. drug report for 1999 released yesterday.

Gone is the image of a heroin addict dying in an alley with a dirty
needle in his or her arm, replaced by glamorous notions of chic models
sniffing purer forms, the State Department's report said.

"For today's prospective heroin user in the United States, needles are
not obligatory," it said, because top-grade Colombian heroin can be
sniffed rather than injected.

"There have been prominent heroin addicts known to have preserved the
facade of a normal life for decades, a fact that can feed youthful
skepticism over heroin's real dangers."

Pale, thin models - dark make-up smudged around their eyes - had the
1990s "heroin chic" image critics said gave it a good name.

Photographer Davide Sorrenti's portrait of his model girlfriend
slumped on a bed with portraits of drug culture heroes drew
condemnation from President Bill Clinton. Sorrenti overdosed at 20.

The report noted the 1994-97 heroin "initiation rate" for youths was
the highest since the early 1970s. It estimated U.S. users at as many
as 1.2 million.

"With heroin demand potentially open-ended and heroin availability
unlikely to be seriously diminished, in the 21st century we can expect
to see a continuing flow of the drug to nearly every country on the
globe."

Opium production - at its lowest in 15 years - was still enough to
supply demand many times over, the report said.

Russian officials tallied the country's heroin addicts at two million.
Crime gangs there developed heroin sources in Afghanistan during the
Soviet-era war with that nation.

Designer drug ecstasy, which users say gives them a feeling of
well-being and energy, is assumed widely to be "a non-addictive
stimulant," the report said.

In the United States, slightly more than 4 per cent and 5 per cent of
teenagers in grades 10 and 12 reported using the drug, it noted.

Designer drug recipes are on the Internet and deadly batches wind up
in clubs globally. Flatliners - named for the image on a heart monitor
when a heart stops beating - killed at least three people in Britain
in 1998. Police said the buyers thought they were getting ecstasy.

Though there was a striking decline in the Andean coca crop that feeds
North American cocaine addictions, drug laboratories there achieved
"extraordinary levels of efficiency in extracting cocaine." In Europe,
cocaine use is growing, the report said, while crack cocaine still
incites violence in American cities.

For eastern and central Europe, cocaine had the novelty value that
enticed U.S. athletes, media stars and Wall Street traders in the 1980s.

"In parts of eastern Europe and Russia, cocaine sells for up to $300
per gram, three times the average cost in the United States," the study said.

The 100 or so tonnes of cocaine seized by the U.S. government a year
is worth up to $10 billion to the drug trade, or more than the gross
domestic product of many states.

Elsewhere:

Afghanistan overtook Burma as the biggest opium producer in 1999 due
to good weather, high prices at planting and the connivance of the
ruling Taleban. Clinton yesterday extended a ban on most forms of U.S.
aid to both states.

Though Nigeria accounts for a lot of heroin entering the U.S., the
State Department exempted it from sanctions because it is in a
high-stakes test of democracy. "President (Olusegun) Obasanjo deserves
a chance to follow through on his strong public denunciations" of
trafficking, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a news
conference.