COCAINE PRODUCTION EXPLODING

MIAMI, Feb. 12 (UPI) - Although drug production in Latin America is
dropping in some locations, the nation's drug czar says the supply of
cocaine from Colombia is ``exploding.''

Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, says coca production rose 26 percent in Colombia last
year.

He says, ``This is a massive, strategic shift of cocaine production
out of Bolivia and Peru, and into Colombia.''

He says between 1995 and 1998, coca cultivation declined by 56 percent
in Peru and 22 percent in Bolivia.

But he says increases in Colombia have offset those declines.

McCaffrey says he is using previously secret CIA crop estimates, which
now will be made public periodically.

McCaffrey spoke Thursday to a group of diplomats and academics at the
University of Miami.

He said he does not believe the Cuban government is involved in drug
smuggling, but he speculated that in a post-Castro era, the island
could become a key transit point.