Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 Source: Log Cabin Democrat (AR) Copyright: The Log Cabin Democrat Contact: http://thecabin.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/548 COLOMBIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONS US DRUG POLICY BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A U.S.-backed program for aerially eradicating drug crops here has failed, a front-running Colombian presidential candidate said Sunday, just days before the Bush administration's first high-level visit. "Today there is more cocaine being produced, more trafficking, more traffickers and larger areas under cultivation," Horacio Serpa, a former interior minister who is leading polls ahead of May's elections, wrote in an editorial in Bogota's Cambio news magazine. "New and alternative formulas are needed along with a recognition that the (counter-drug) policies applied to date have been a failure," wrote Serpa, a member of the opposition Liberal Party. Elsewhere Sunday, the army announced that U.S.-trained counterdrug troops seized a jungle refinery where leftist guerrillas were allegedly making gasoline used to process cocaine. The spraying of cocaine and heroin-producing crops and U.S. troop training are part of a $1.3 billion drug-fighting program approved under the Clinton administration. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom