U.N. ATTEMPTING TO WIPE OUT POPPIES, COCA

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations wants political and financial
backing to eliminate nearly all coca bush and opium poppy growing in
10 years as crackdowns cannot end worldwide drug abuse.

The strategy, to be endorsed by presidents, prime ministers and other
government leaders at a World Drug Problem conference to be opened by
President Clinton Monday is not new. But the new U.N. drug czar
believes this time it will work.

Pino Arlacchi, Italy's foremost expert on the Mafia and now head of
the Vienna-based U.N. Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention,
wants to induce opium and coca growers to switch to legal crops and
offer poor farmers inducements such as roads, hospitals and schools.

``We want every farmer in the world involved in cultivation of illegal
crops to make a balance between the income he has and the quality of
life he can have by participating in the program,'' he told a news
conference.

The targets are the principal growing countries for both cocoa and
opium crops that collectively cover only a total of 1,800 square miles
of land in Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam, Colombia,
Bolivia and Peru.

The cost, Arlacchi estimated, would be about $5 billion over 10 years
but he said some countries in Latin America, such as Colombia and
Peru, were using some of their own funds.

In addition this amount could be offset from monies already flowing to
these countries for related programs so the total new expenditure
could be as low as $2.5 billion over 10 years.

``The major obstacle is not financial,'' he said. ``The major obstacle
is pessimism and skepticism that surrounds the issue of drug control.''

The pessimism was evident almost immediately after Arlacchi made a
deal last October with Afghanistan's Taliban leaders, who whip drug
users on the streets but also control areas where 1 million poppy
farmers supply 50 percent of Europe's heroin.

Last month he concluded a similar agreement with Myanmar.

Arlacchi has some problems with gaining support from the United States
and European nations because of their disdain for the Taliban and its
harsh Islamic purist rule in Kabul.

In Myanmar, which produces more opium than Afghanistan, giving money
to the military government is as unpalatable. But Arlacchi maintains
that it is not accidental the poppies are grown in remote areas of the
world. ``What's the alternative? Doing nothing at all?'' he said.

``If we support them, then in five, six years we could nearly
eliminate poppy production like we did in Pakistan.''

In Latin America, governments are already implementing the strategy in
some countries like Bolivia, where chewing coca leaves is part of the
fabric of life. More than 10,000 families are being moved out of the
main coca-growing region, amid charges that the farmers are losing
their land forever.

Ken Bluestone, head of the London-based Catholic Institute for
International Relations, argues that too many poor farmers are not
given a real choice between growing coca or poppies or alternative
livelihoods.

``Punishing them with crop eradication and repression is unfair and
does not meet the objective of halting the drugs trade,'' he said.
``There is a real danger that the positive rhetoric of the drugs
summit will be ignored when it comes to implementing U.N. anti-drugs
programs.''

The alternative crop program is not the only strategy world leaders
are expected to endorse. Others include:

- -- demand reduction, aimed at cutting the number of drug users, mainly
through education and health programs. The United Nations estimates
that heroin, which it calls the most serious drug of abuse, is used by
eight million people; cocaine by some 13 million; and marijuana or

cannabis, the most widely used drug, by about 140 million.

- -- money laundering, bank secrecy and offshore havens, all used to
camouflage huge sums of money from drug trafficking. A report has been
released that outlines the problem without giving definite
recommendations. U.N. officials say there has to be less bank secrecy
in offshore banks and that publicly fingering a bank might scare off
legitimate investors.

- -- amphetamine-type stimulants, including synthetic drugs like speed
and ecstasy, that are becoming increasingly popular and are used by an
estimated 30 million people. The aim here would be to press drug
companies to know their customers.

- -- judicial cooperation, to ensure drug traffickers cannot take
advantage of increasingly open borders and markets.

Checked-by: (trikydik)