U.N. REPORTS DROPS IN SOME NATIONS' DRUG CROPS

When Pino Arlacchi, director of the U.N. International Drug Control
Program, 13 months ago proposed eliminating opium poppy and coca leaf
cultivation in 10 years, his strategy was greeted with polite skepticism.

The notion of getting opium and coca farmers to grow less profitable
crops in return for the promise of schools, medical clinics, roads and
other means to a better life struck many listeners in the General
Assembly as unrealistic.

But Arlacchi says that his timetable for eradicating the raw
ingredients for heroin and cocaine around the world is, if anything,
running ahead of schedule in some countries. He acknowledged
difficulties in others.

Arlacchi insisted that people are taking alternative development, as
his strategy is called, more seriously.

"The skepticism has disappeared," he said in a telephone interview
from the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention headquarters in
Vienna, Austria. "Now we're not discussing any more if it's possible
to eliminate opium poppy and coca production. We are discussing how to
do it."

As evidence, Arlacchi cited the progress achieved in Peru and Bolivia
during the past year and a half.

In Bolivia, 34,000 acres of coca plants have been eradicated since the
beginning of 1998. He described this as equivalent to depriving the
drug market of nearly 43 tons of cocaine.

In Peru, more than 50,000 acres were taken out of coca cultivation, an
amount equivalent to pulling nearly 65 tons of cocaine from the market.

The decline began before Arlacchi began spreading his gospel of
alternative development. Separate efforts had been launched by the
Peruvian and Bolivian governments, which included Peru's air
interdiction of aircraft transporting coca base to Colombia.

Peruvian coca cultivation dropped by 56 percent between 1995 and 1998,
according to the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Bolivian coca cultivation, it said, declined by 17 percent last year.

Arlacchi estimated that it will cost $5 billion during a 10-year
period to phase out coca leaf and opium poppy production.

Opium poppy production in Afghanistan looks likely to increase this
year, Arlacchi said, but the ruling Taliban militia is showing more
willingness to help reverse the trend.

In June, he said, nearly 1,000 acres of opium poppies were eradicated
in Qandahar province, where the U.N. drug control agency has an
alternative development project. The acreage taken out of cultivation
would have produced about 24 tons of opium, or 2.4 tons of heroin. By
bringing alternative development to Qandahar, Arlacchi said, "We
removed 2.4 tons of heroin with a $5 million investment."