OPIUM ERADICATION SLOWS IN COLOMBIA

WASHINGTON - Pilots who spray herbicide over drug fields in Colombia have
destroyed 75 percent less opium so far this year than they did in 2000,
despite the start of a $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug program, according to
U.S. government figures. Coca eradication, however, has increased.

A senior Republican congressman called the decline in opium destruction
alarming and said the State Department, which oversees the program with
Colombian police, should be held accountable.

"There is no reason that we could not have eradicated this scourge of opium
this year," said Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., former chairman of the House
International Relations Committee.

Through Nov. 7, pilots sprayed 5,414 acres of opium, the raw material for
heroin, compared with 22,867 acres for all of 2000, according to figures
given to The Associated Press by the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. It
is unclear how much more spraying will take place this year.

As opium destruction foundered, eradication of coca, the raw material for
cocaine, increased to 197,603 acres through Nov. 7 from 116,140 acres in 2000.

"The attention of the Colombians and the American government may be so
focused on the coca problem that the opium problem just hasn't received the
attention and emphasis," said Rensselaer Lee, a consultant on international
drug issues.

Colombia has long been the world's leading cocaine producer. It accounts
for only a tiny fraction of the world's heroin market but is the largest
source of heroin sold in the United States, according to U.S. officials. It
has the potential to produce almost 9 tons of heroin annually, virtually
all for the illegal U.S. market.

Many more Americans use cocaine than heroin. A Health and Human Services
survey last year found 308,000 Americans had used heroin during the year
compared with 3.3 million cocaine users.

An embassy official said destroying opium is difficult because much of it
is grown in areas where aerial spraying is prohibited, such as indigenous
reservations.