March 30, 1997

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

SAN JOSE DE LAS HERMOSAS, Colombia (AP) Standing waisthigh in red, pink
and violet poppy flowers, a peasant delicately slits a plant bulb with a
razor. Milkywhite opium gum, the key ingredient in heroin, oozes from the
gash.

``This work is innocent because I'm just making a few pesos,'' says Chucho,
who sells the opium in San Jose de las Hermosas, a ramshackle village an
hour's walk down the valley.

It is stage one in the making of highpurity Colombian heroin that in the
last few years has grabbed a big chunk of the U.S. East Coast market for the
drug. Some Colombian heroin is also reaching Europe.

On Feb. 28, the United States cited the growing threat of Colombian heroin
among reasons for decertifying Colombia, the world's biggest producer of
cocaine, as an ally in the war on drugs.

Dwarfed by decadesold Asian heroin trafficking networks, Colombia produces
only 1.5 percent of the world's opium, which is refined through a chemical
process into morphine, and then heroin.

But Colombians have promoted the drug with the same entrepreneurial agility
they applied to cocaine, making strong inroads in the biggest U.S. heroin
market the Northeast. American officials say they account for at least 80
percent of heroin sales in the New York area.

The key is simple: markeddown prices for whitepowder heroin so pure that it
can be smoked or snorted instead of injected, avoiding the use of needles and
the danger of AIDS.

The price of a kilo of Colombian heroin in the United States is as low as
$85,000; a kilo from Southeast Asia might cost twice as much.

Unlike their counterparts in Asia and the Middle East, Colombian heroin
traffickers employ few middlemen who must share in the profits, enabling them
to keep prices down, said Anthony Senneca, acting chief of the New York
office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Thousands of miles from New York, the production chain begins in remote
places like San Jose in Colombia's Tolima province.

There is no police station. Army patrols rarely venture here. Leftist rebels
who tax opium buyers rule the hills.

An Associated Press reporter and photographer reached San Jose on horseback,
riding for five hours into a canyon of dense forest. A traditional, brightly
painted bus called a ``chiva'' offered another way out: five more
bonecrunching hours on a winding mountain road to a nearby town.

Armed guerrillas in civilian clothing who belong to the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, the country's biggest rebel band, monitor traffic and
make sure opium traders do not get mugged.

At a roadside kiosk where travelers buy food and drink, a visitor asked to
talk to the local guerrilla commander. ``Did you come to buy?'' replied the
young vendor, signaling how deeply rebels are involved in the business.

Colombians started growing poppy in the late 1980s, and heroin cooks were
brought in from Asia to teach them how to make heroin. High prices encouraged
a planting boom in the early 1990s, which in turn produced a big supply that
has pushed down prices despite periodic croppoisoning raids by police
planes.

In San Jose, a kilo of opium gum costs 500,000 pesos ($500) or less, well
under half the price five years ago. Many poppy harvesters are paid just $8 a
day with free food.

Still, that is enough in this impoverished land to keep farmers growing
poppy, and the DEA warns of a growing Colombian plague. Sixtytwo percent of
the heroin seized at U.S. airports in 1995 was from Colombia. Five years ago,
the percentage was negligible.

The statistic, however, reflects in part that Colombians usually smuggle
heroin by sending it in with more easily detected couriers on commercial
flights to Miami and New York.

Asian traffickers usually smuggle heroin in greater bulk into the United
States by sea, which is harder to detect and therefore seized less often.

The Colombians' use of ``mules'' who hide one or two kilograms of heroin in
suitcases or swallow rubber packets filled with the drug is an indication
that it is still a business for smalltime operators.

By contrast, Colombia's cocaine cartels smuggle their product by the ton on
jets, boats and even small submarines.

So far, the cartels seem unwilling to branch into heroin, said an official at
DEA headquarters in Arlington, Va.

``They're making so much money in the cocaine business, they may not at this
moment see a need to diversify,'' he said in a telephone interview. He asked
that his name not be used for security reasons because his work brings him to
Colombia.

The DEA, however, worries that major cocaine groups will eventually try to
exert control over the heroin trade, possibly expanding the business and
making it harder to disrupt.

In Tolima province, the government is trying to wean peasants off
poppygrowing by offering aid to grow legal crops. But money is short and
many farmers fail to qualify for loans.

``This will never end,'' says Chucho, the peasant on the hill above San Jose.
``As long as the (heroin) business continues, who's going to stop growing
poppy?''