U.N. REPORTS SHARP DROP IN COLOMBIA COCAINE CROP

U.S.-Financed Eradication Credited With 32% Decline

Bogota, Colombia -- The United Nations said Wednesday that
American-financed aerial eradication of Colombia's vast coca fields was
starting to pay big dividends, releasing new estimates that show the size
of the crop dropping by 32 percent in the first seven months of the year.

Production of coca -- the main ingredient in cocaine -- is increasing
slightly in Peru and Bolivia. But the sizable reduction in Colombia's crop
means that for the first time overall coca production in the Andes is
dropping at a rapid pace.

The new estimates from the U.N. Drug Control Program show that coca fields
in Colombia fell from 251,940 acres in December to 170,430 acres on July
31. At this rate, the United Nations said, Colombia's coca crop will be
reduced 50 percent by the end of the year.

"The reduction is heavy, and it seems as if it's accelerating," said Klaus
Nyholm, who as chief of the U.N. anti-drug efforts in Colombia oversaw the
study. He announced the results on Wednesday afternoon along with
Colombia's interior minister, Fernando Londono.

The U.S. Congress is debating whether to provide an additional $700 million
in aid to Colombia, on top of $2.5 billion Washington has spent since 2000
to eradicate coca and undercut the financing source for Colombia's
insurgent groups.

Human rights groups frequently criticize President Alvaro Uribe's
government, and some U.S. members of Congress have questioned the
effectiveness of U.S. aid.

The new data, though, are sure to encourage supporters of eradication.
"Many people who thought this couldn't be done in the past are having to
rethink their assumptions," John Walters, the White House drug policy
chief, said from Washington.

The United States, which does its own study of Colombia's drug crops, first
started to register a decline in Colombian coca production last year. But
the findings were tempered by discrepancies in American data and a
corresponding rise in coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia.

The figures released on Wednesday, the first time Nyholm's office has
presented half-year figures, are based on satellite imagery and
calculations. His office also releases an annual census, which found
Colombia's drug crop dropped by 30 percent from December 2001 to December
2002. The U.S. figures showed a much smaller drop, 15 percent, during the
same period.

Colombian and U.N. officials said the latest estimates showed that Uribe's
aggressive stance on drugs -- one long sought by American policy-makers --
was paying off across the region. Unlike his predecessors, Uribe has in his
13 months in office allowed American planners to use spray planes whenever
and wherever they see fit.

Londono also attributed the decline in coca production to a fall in cocaine
consumption in the United States. According to the Department of Health and
Human Services, the number of occasional users fell from 6 million in 1988
to 3 million in 2000.