COCAINE PRODUCTION IN PERU DROPS 27% IN 1997

The decrease places the South American nation behind Colombia for the first
time.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - In a war on drugs that often seems a lost
cause,there is some unprecedented good news from South America.

Peru, long the world's top producer of coca leaf, saw a 27 percent fall in
production last year, dropping it for the first time behind Colombia in
total acres under cultivation.

Over two years, Peru's coca acreage has dropped an impressive 40 percent,
and government officials are now talking seriously about eliminating
illegal coca - the active ingredient in cocaine - in five years.

The news comes as Washington prepares later this month to make its annual
decisions on certifying the anti-narcotics efforts of the world's
drug-producing and drug-transit nations. Colombia last year was decertified
for noncooperation, and both Colombia and Mexico face a threat of
decertification, this year.

South America's other coca-producing nations, however, are a different
story. The hefty drop in coca production in Peru last year comes on top of
a 5 percent decrease in Bolivia, another major coca producer. Colombia,
bucking the regional trend, saw its acreage grow by 18 percent in 1997.

Still, the combined effect is that the total acres of illegal coca grown in
South America dropped 7 percent last year, and the combined weight of coca
leaves produced dropped 14 percent, according to State Department figures.

"When this came out it was like a Christmas present," said Heather Hodges,
deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Lima. "For once we're proud Peru is not
No. 1."

The dramatic decrease in Peru is largely the result of a government
get-tough policy on drugs, combined with a timely infusion of U.S. aid to
coca farmers looking for alternative crops.