PASTRANA WANTS MONEY LAUNDERING TREATY

CARTAGENA, Colombia, - Colombian President Andres
Pastrana has proposed an international agreement to confiscate the
assets of drug traffickers.

During the 5th International Conference of the Struggle Against the
Production, Trafficking and Money Laundering of Drug Money, Pastrana
said the agreement would ``allow all those facing the problem to go
after the properties acquired through drug trafficking.''

Pastrana said this year Colombian police destroyed 30,094 acres of
cocaine-producing plants and 9,613 acres of poppy, and confiscated 13
tons of pure cocaine, 41 tons of coca leaf and 2 tons of opium,
morphine and heroine.

In his address, Pastrana said Colombia has ``suffered the hardest
consequences'' of drug trafficking, and added, ``The culture of easy
money taken by a few and promoted by those who trade in drugs has
caused profound scars in our society.''

Before delegates from three countries, the president said, ``On the
economic side, the damage this problem has caused us is alarming.''

Pastrana said coca and poppy farms have harmed the environment by
affecting huge rain forests that are unique in the world. ``The
illegal farming has destroyed more than 1 million hectares of jungle,
forests and wide barren plains,'' he said.

Pastrana said that drug producers use an estimated 200,000 gallons of
herbicide, 16,000 tons of chemical fertilizers and 100,000 gallons of
poison to fumigate drug crops, and those chemicals contaminate
Colombia's water and soil.