War On Drugs

DRUG CZAR TOUTS COLOMBIAN EFFORTS, SAYS HEROIN PRICE UP

WASHINGTON - The purity of South American heroin on U.S. streets declined
sharply last year as prices increased for the first time, the strongest
indication yet that an aggressive antidrug program in Colombia may be
having an impact in the United States, U.S. drug czar John Walters said
Wednesday.

But Walters recognized there was still no change in the purity and price
levels of cocaine, by far Colombia's largest drug crop and the top
moneymaker for drug traffickers. U.S. officials hope the heroin numbers are
an early indicator that will eventually carry over into cocaine.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration Domestic Monitor Program,
which uses samples obtained through undercover purchases to measure purity,
South American heroin was 32.5 percent pure in 2004, down from 41.8 percent
in 2003. The price was $1 per milligram in 2004 versus 77 cents a year earlier.

In the past, the Bush administration has cited statistics from fewer
kidnappings to record crop eradications as proof that Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, an erstwhile U.S. ally, was making headway against drug
traffickers and the paramilitary fighters and left-wing guerrilla groups
that have been battling the government for decades.

Walters praised Uribe for his "spectacular" results.

But until now, the upbeat numbers in Colombia weren't coupled with
corresponding increases in the price of cocaine or heroin -- or a decline
in purity of both -- in the United States.

Critics of Plan Colombia -- a $4 billion program targeting drug trafficking
and illegal armed groups -- say this showed drug producers were finding new
ways to keep the U.S. market supplied.

Colombia receives about $700 million a year in U.S. aid.

Walters, who heads the White House's Office of National Drug Control
Policy, cited the data during a presentation on the success of Plan
Colombia at the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.