DRUG TESTING WOULD DRY UP DEMAND, COLOMBIA SAYS

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's president proposed a new front in the global
war on drugs: mass drug testing for Americans and Europeans.

Reviving the traditional conflict between drug-producing and drug-
consuming nations, President Alvaro Uribe said yesterday the tests would
dry up demand for drugs that Colombian insurgents sell to finance their
decades-old civil war.

"We need more serious commitments from the consumer countries," Uribe said
at a conference of Spanish and Latin-American attorneys general.

He called on "the people in the United States and Europe to submit to a
drug test to help us conquer drugs." Uribe singled out U.S. and European
executives to start the process.

Colombia produces 90 percent of the world's cocaine. Drug trafficking
supports both the leftist rebels waging a bloody 38-year war against the
government and their rivals, the illegal right-wing militias. Some 3,500
people die in the fighting every year.

Many Colombians believe the government could win the war quickly if it
weren't for the money the rebels and the right-wing militias make from the
drug trade.

Even though possession of a personal supply of cocaine or marijuana is
legal in Colombia, the levels of drug use are low compared to the United
States and Europe.