PRODUCTION IN COLOMBIA IS TWICE AS LARGE AS THOUGHT

Drug lords, communist rebel groups and right-wing death squads are
tearing Colombia apart.

And cocaine and crack cocaine are tearing America apart.

But the problem is even bigger than U.S. drug fighters
believed.

The Central Intelligence Agency calculates that Colombia can actually
produce twice as much cocaine than earlier thought.

That's frightening because most Colombian cocaine is smuggled into the
United States, where it poisons our youth and robs them of hope and
life. Drug lords use money earned from this ruthless poisoning to
corrupt government officials in Colombia, the United States and the
rest of the world and to pay taxes to anti-government guerrillas.

President Clinton's request for $1.3 billion in aid to provide dozens
of helicopters and other equipment for Colombian anti-drug units to
take on the drug lords and drug-supported rebels should be granted by
Congress.

Fear that the United States might be drawn into a civil war between
guerrilla forces and the government in Colombia is real, but such a
possibility is small.

The fact is that the drug producers can be beaten. They have been in
other countries.

Coca production in Peru and Bolivia has been reduced significantly
through aggressive police work and programs to persuade farmers to
grow alternative crops.

The same can be done in Colombia, if honest Colombians dedicated to
stamping out the drug trade are given the necessary tools to fight the
war.