U.S. DRUG CZAR WARNS EUROPE ABOUT COCAINE AND ECSTASY

BRUSSELS -- The U.S. drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, warned Europeans on
Thursday not to be complacent about the spreading use of cocaine, which he
called the "worst thing that happened to the United States' I since World
War II

Mr. McCaffrey said that in the 1980s cocaine "was widely believed to be
safer than alcohol and nonaddictive. " But today, some 3.6 million
Americans are chronically addicted to the drug, which is one of the major
causes of crime.

"We did not understand the danger," he said.

He said that while the United States had a serious drug problem that was
getting better, the Europeans had a similar problem that was getting worse,
partly because of increasing tolerance in many EU countries for drugs like
cocaine and Ecstasy, both of which are widely used in the Continent's dance
and rave club culture.

Mr. McCaffrey, the director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, was attending the annual meeting of the EU's
drug-monitoring agency in Lisbon. He said he would invite the EU "to study
the experience of the United States in the 1980s and not repeat our
disastrous mistake" over cocaine.

Mr. McCaffrey said that during his six-nation tour of Europe, he also was
seeking a dialogue on doping in sport. "We are all involved in the Olympic
movement," he said, emphasizing that "chemical re-engineering of the human
body" had to be outlawed.

At a summit meeting in Tampere, Finland, earlier this month, EU leaders
decided to step up cooperation in fighting crime and money laundering. Mr.
McCaffrey said intelligence sharing and cooperation between U.S. and
European law enforcement agencies already was highly effective, but he
added that he was calling for broadened trans-Atlantic political cooperation.

As the United States tightens the screws on narcotics smugglers, European
cocaine seizures have been increasing in each of the past six years.
Seizures in the first six months of this year were double the total in 1998.

Mr. McCaffrey warned that the success of efforts in the United States to
reduce narcotics use -- which he said had dropped by half over the last two
decades - meant that organized gangs were seeking to expand markets in
Europe. U.S. intelligence estimates a total flow of about 700 metric tons
of cocaine from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia this year, with up to 130 tons
still looking for a market.

Data released by Mr. McCaffrey indicated that police forces were now
seizing more cocaine in Europe than along the southwestern U.S. border, the
chief entry point of the drug into the United States. Spain was the main
entry point for the drug in Europe, with an estimated 57 percent of the
total, followed by the Netherlands.

Mr. McCaffrey said that in meetings with officials at the European
Commission here, he was strongly suggesting that economic aid to Latin
American nations seeking to replace coca production with other crops was
"the right thing to do."

"It is making a difference and it is serving the interests of the EU as
well," he added.

He said Europe also was a maj source of drugs, such as Ecstasy, which he
called an underestimated danger. He said science had proved that a single
heavy dose of the so-called recreational drug Ecstasy or a low dosage over
time would cause serious brain damage.

"This drug is dangerous," Mr. McCaffrey said.

The heroin consumed in Europe, on the other hand, comes almost entirely
from Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to data released by Mr.
McCaffrey's office. Afghanistan not only is replacing Burma as the chief
source of illegal opiates, but also has become the main processing center.

Most of the heroin is shipped overland to Europe through Iran and Turkey.
War in the Balkans has pushed the heroin traffickers northward from their
traditional route through Serbia, with the drug now moving through eastern
Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland before reaching Western Europe
through Germany. Russia also has become a market for drugs.