Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2001
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Author: Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

OPIUM POPPY SPREADING FROM COLOMBIA TO PERU

Traffickers Are Moving Outside Drug War Areas

WASHINGTON -- The opium poppy, the raw ingredient for heroin, has now been 
found in Peru, where it has spread from Colombia, underscoring the 
difficulty of containing the boundaries of the drug war.

"We're finding it in high altitudes in Peru," said Rand Beers, assistant 
secretary of state for international law enforcement and narcotics affairs.

Drug traffickers introduced the poppy to Colombia a decade ago, seeking to 
diversify from cocaine to heroin.

Drug enforcement experts now say Colombia is the source of as much as 75 
percent of the heroin found along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Beers said he didn't have solid figures on how much opium poppy has been 
discovered in Peru, but traffickers there also seem to want to broaden 
their sources of income.

"The traffickers understand that more is better than less and that 
different products are better than a single product," Beers said.

Poppy is usually grown at higher altitudes. Farmers slit the poppy plant to 
extract a milky latex gum that is later processed into opium and heroin. 
Traditionally, poppy is grown in Central Asia and the Golden Triangle 
region of Southeast Asia.

Authorities are noticing "rapid increases in cultivation of opium poppy" in 
Peru as traffickers look for "geographic regions that are outside of the 
current target areas," according to a Web site of the U.S. Agency for 
International Development.

Carlos Alzamora, Peru's ambassador to the United States, recently wrote 
that he is worried U.S.-financed aerial fumigation of coca and poppy 
plantations in Colombia will raise prices for the raw materials for 
narcotics, "motivating (Peruvian) peasants to return to coca cultivation."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager