Pubdate: Sun, 14 Nov 1999
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Page: 2A
Author: Eric Lichtblau and Esther Schrader, Los Angeles Times

FLAWED ESTIMATES STIR DOUBT IN WAR ON DRUGS

U.S. Says Cocaine Trafficking Figures Too Low

WASHINGTON -- Government authorities say they have seriously underestimated
the flow of cocaine from Colombia and other drug-producing nations, a
realization that casts doubt on years of basic assumptions behind the war
on drugs.

Drug-intelligence officials are particularly alarmed over their discovery
of a new high-yield variety of coca being grown and processed in Colombia,
the No. 1 supplier of cocaine to the United States.

That, together with an acknowledgment that their methods for measuring
narcotics production may be seriously flawed, means that government
estimates of global drug trafficking are likely to "skyrocket" early next
year, said officials in the drug-intelligence community.

Estimates of cocaine production in Colombia alone could triple, sources
said. "It's going to be big," said a law-enforcement official, who asked
not to be identified.

The revised estimates, combined with a soon-to-be-released plan for
countering lax coordination among drug-intelligence agencies, are likely to
alter U.S. tactics in the $17.8 billion drug war for years, sources said.

Key policy-makers said estimates of worldwide drug production, while
imprecise, are critical in allocating drug-interdiction resources, plotting
strategy and influencing diplomatic relations with drug-producing nations.

"The policy-maker ought to have correct estimates of how (drugs are
flowing), patterns, where, when, so that you're not buying a bunch of Coast
Guard cutters to go to the Eastern Caribbean if most of your smuggling is
on maritime craft in the Eastern Pacific," said Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey,
the White House drug czar.

Yet the new numbers jeopardize McCaffrey's ambitious goals for cutting
narcotics supplies 25 percent by 2002 and 50 percent by 2007.

Critics of U.S. policy have demanded an end to the war on drugs. News of
higher cocaine and heroin production, as well as an explosion in border
confiscations of the designer drug Ecstasy, could bolster arguments that
anti-drug strategies have failed.

Authorities have been working to devise a better way to track the global
flow of drugs, combining satellite photos of crop fields with more precise
analyses of how poppy, coca and other crops are processed into drugs for sale.

Embarrassing shortcomings in the system became apparent last month after
U.S. and Colombian authorities broke up a Latin American cocaine ring. The
volume of cocaine that they now think the "Juvenal" network was bringing
into the United States -- up to 30 metric tons a month -- rivaled earlier
estimates of all cartel imports combined, officials said.

"There was just amazement that one organization would have the ability to
distribute that much cocaine a month," an official said. "The whole Juvenal
thing really just illustrates why we have to get our act together in terms
of reconciling these numbers."

Even before final estimates are made next year, officials have said they
have been trying to assess what they mean.

Some officials said Latin American traffickers are sending more cocaine to
Europe than ever, and others said growers are stockpiling large supplies of
the drug. Still others suggest that Americans are consuming more cocaine
than earlier feared.

Observers, such as Mark A.R. Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis
Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, have said the
estimates are little more than guesswork used to get Congress to authorize
more funds.

They also point to extensive surveys, emergency room admissions and other
data showing a decline in drug use in the United States.

"More cocaine in the U.S.? Hard to believe," Kleiman said. "Where are all
the corpses?"

The scramble to get a better handle on worldwide drug flow comes at a
critical time in U.S. relations with Colombia.

Anti-government rebels, who control much of the narcotics trade, have
gained strength in recent months, and Clinton administration officials have
argued that only a new infusion of cash to the Colombian government -- as
much as $1.5 billion -- can stop them.

So far, the administration has been timid about pushing the proposal on
Capitol Hill, preoccupied with negotiations on other high-priority issues.
However, some experts said the revised Colombian cocaine estimates could
move the aid request to the forefront.

"Clearly, if you look at the new numbers, we have to change our way of
doing business. We have to make a better argument for getting the
Colombians more help," said an administration official, who asked not to be
identified.

In Colombia, which produces 70 percent of the world's cocaine, a
combination of factors has scuttled U.S. numbers that have shaped anti-drug
policy.

Cocaine producers have developed an insidious variety of coca, but U.S.
intelligence agents have limited access to a key drug-growing region,
controlled by guerrillas. That has contributed to U.S. authorities' flawed
understanding of the region's growth and processing methods.

For years, most coca grown in Colombia was of a variety -- ipadu -- whose
leaves yield relatively small amounts of cocaine, officials said. A
higher-yield variety -- E. coca coca -- is grown in Peru and Bolivia and
sent to Colombia for processing and export.

When satellite photos of Colombia taken late last year showed acres of new
coca fields, U.S. officials assumed Colombians were growing the same
low-yield coca plants they long have cultivated. Intelligence experts
estimated that 165 metric tons of potential cocaine were produced in Colombia.

However, recent intelligence about Colombia's cocaine-producing regions
revealed that the crops are a third, never-before-seen variety of coca,
which yields higher amounts of cocaine and takes a year -- rather than
three -- to cultivate.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake