U.S. OFFICIAL URGES EUROPE TO COMBAT RISING DRUGS

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 this week to address the problem. He
also is pushing for a drug-free Olympics. Anti-drug 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 the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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 Thursday, and it's
finding them in Europe, where attitudes toward some narcotics differ from
those in the United States.

The latest report by the International Narcotics Control Board 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 in Vienna, Austria, said Europe is not only a major destination
for drugs, including heroin, but also an emerging producer of marijuana and
illegal synthetic drugs such as ecstasy.

McCaffrey is set to leave today for meetings with officials in Britain,
Belgium, Portugal and France. He said his message will be that cocaine is
not a "soft" drug and that Europeans should contribute more in the battle
against narcotics from Latin America. McCaffrey urged Europeans to help
curb the flow of 700 metric tons of cocaine a year from Colombia, Bolivia
and Peru -- half of which ends up on U.S. streets.

He credited good police work by the Spanish and Dutch for much of a sharp
increase in cocaine seizures this year, but he said the increase in busts
every year for six years "is indicative of a changing problem."

McCaffrey said Europeans should contribute more to alternative economic
development in the Andean region and step up efforts to stop drug
production and money laundering.

"They are now the target of a drug threat that is searching for new
customers," McCaffrey said.

His trip also will focus on curtailing the use of performance-enhancing
drugs in sports. This coincides with the Nov. 14-17 Australian sports
summit aimed at eliminating drug use by athletes in the 2000 Olympics.

McCaffrey's office estimates that 80 to 130 metric tons of cocaine is
available for consumption in Europe, with expected seizures this year of 40
to 50 metric tons. In the first six months of the year, seizures were
already double those of last year, it said.

The report estimates that 57 percent of the South American cocaine flowing
into Europe lands in Spain or Portugal, 15 percent in the Netherlands, 6
percent in Belgium and 7 percent at unknown entry points.