RESULTS OF DRUG SPRAYING UNCLEAR

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S.-backed Colombian police sprayed nearly twice as many
acres of coca in Colombia last year in the fight against cocaine, but the
impact on overall production is still unclear, the State Department said
Friday.

A CIA report on Colombian production figures is expected to be made public
by the White House next week.

The numbers should help evaluate the success of the stepped-up
U.S.-Colombian effort to combat rampant coca production in Colombia, by far
the world's largest producer. Coca is the raw material for cocaine.

Data on Colombia and virtually all other countries worldwide was contained
in the annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.

The report said more than 200,000 acres of coca were sprayed in Colombia
last year - almost twice as much as in 2000.

Colombian officials said Thursday their figures show a dramatic reduction in
coca cultivation in 2001. In contrast, the State Department said that
although final figures were not available at the time of publication there
was probably an increase.

In recent years, production in Colombia has steadily gone up but the rate of
increase has been declining.

Perhaps the brightest spot in U.S.-Colombian cooperation was in the area of
extraditions. The report said 26 fugitives, including 23 Colombians, were
extradited to the United States, with eight more in the final stages of
removal, a big increase over the previous three-year period.

The report gave a cautiously upbeat account of overall U.S. antidrug
activities last year.

``U.S. international counternarcotics efforts kept the drug trade on the
defensive in 2001,'' it said. ``A long-term campaign among Western
Hemisphere nations to curb the flow of cocaine and heroin to the United
States has systematically narrowed the drug syndicates' maneuvering room.
With our allies, we continued to attack drug crop expansion, to strengthen
interdiction efforts and to break up major trafficking organizations.''

On other countries, the report said:

Opium poppy cultivation in Mexico almost tripled last year compared with
2000. Mexico effectively eradicated 42,000 acres of poppies in 2001 but
remaining land yielded some 78 tons of opium gum. This compares with 30 tons
the previous year. Mexico remains a major supplier of heroin,
methamphetamine, and marijuana, and is the transit point for more than one
half of the cocaine sold in the United States. Laundering of drug money in
Mexico remains a major problem despite government efforts to combat it.

There was a ``vast reduction'' in poppy cultivation in Pakistan, enabling
the country to essentially achieve its goal of eliminating opium production
only a year behind schedule. The crop fell to a record low of 526 acres in
2001, with cultivation concentrated in inaccessible areas.

Farmers throughout Afghanistan took advantage of the collapse of the Taliban
militia last November to resume poppy cultivation. The Taliban had banned
poppy production but no effort was made to seize stored opium or precursor
chemicals, or to arrest and prosecute narcotics traffickers.

To the extent poppy production continued, it was in areas controlled by the
northern alliance which, with U.S. military support, helped to drive the
Taliban from power. The interim government has outlawed poppy production but
U.S. officials acknowledge that it lacks the ability to enforce the ban.

In Peru, a highly successful coca eradication program reduced the number of
acres planted with coca. But, ``record price levels for coca in these areas
during 2001 is endangering the progress made since 1995. Moreover, reports
of poppy cultivation are increasing at an alarming rate.''

In Bolivia, after a successful coca eradication program during the final
years of the last decade, there was a slowdown in 2001, resulting in
increased production.