DRUG USE DOWN IN U.S. BUT CLIMBING IN EUROPE

(Washington)- Illegal drug use is falling in the United States but
rising sharply in Europe, U.S. officials say. The amount of drugs
seized in Europe more than doubled this year as South American
traffickers targeted the continent.

Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's chief drug policy adviser, is
holding a series of drug summits across Europe next week to address
the problem. He is also pushing for a drug-free Olympics.

Antidrug authorities classify 13 million Americans as current illegal
drug users, compared with 25 million in 1980. Cocaine use has dropped
the most dramatically, from 5.7 million in 1985 to 1.8 million,
according to McCaffrey's Office of National Drug Control Policy. A
current drug user is anyone who used drugs at least once in the past
mouth.

Comparable statistics are not available for most of Europe, although
surveys taken in recent years show cocaine use ranging from 0.5
percent of the population in Belgium to 3.3 percent in Spain. Ross
Deck of McCaffrey's office, who has been meeting with European
officials tracking drug use, said there is ample evidence that drug
use is increasing across Europe although countries are only beginning
to compile statistics.

"Cocaine is looking for new markets," McCaffrey said at a news
conference Thursday, and it's finding them in Europe, where attitudes
toward some narcotics differ from those in the United States.

The International Narcotics Control Board, in its latest report cited
increased demand for illegal synthetic drugs in Europe and said heroin
use is up in some countries. It said preventing illegal drug use is
difficult on a continent "where it is increasingly being viewed as an
almost normal cultural phenomenon." It said cocaine use is not seen as
a major public health problem.

The board, based in Vienna, Austria, said Europe is not only a major
destination for drugs, including heroin, but an emerging producer of
marijuana and illegal synthetic drugs such as ecstasy. McCaffrey said
Americans need European help in stopping the flow of 700 metric tons
of cocaine a year from Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.