Newsgroups: alt.drugs
From: [catalyst remailer] at [netcom.com]
Subject: Weird Shit. Government on cocaine.
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 23:57:08 -0700

Random goofiness. Laugh if you can keep from crying. Our folly. I'm
laughing. Keep laughing.

         WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United States said
Monday that rampant cocaine use has become a global scourge,
undermining and corrupting governments and destroying lives
almost everywhere.
         In its report to Congress on the international narcotics
trade in 1993, the State Department said heroin production and
trafficking was also increasing, opening new marketing
opportunities for international criminals.
         Still, crack cocaine, which first flooded the streets of
U.S. cities in the 1980s, remained the number one threat,
spreading its poison ever wider, the department said in its
annual roundup on the international narcotics trade.
         ``Rampant cocaine use, which was once a peculiarly American
phenomenon, is now a worldwide scourge,'' the report said.
''From Spain to Russia to Vietnam and Zimbabwe, the 'white
poison of the Andes' has surfaced as a potential threat to
countries unprepared to deal with a new drugs epidemic.''
         The report alleged that drug corruption had infected
officials and institutions in a long list of countries,
including Bolivia, Burma, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Panama,
Syria, Thailand, Venezuela and Zambia.
         The Panamanian government, brought to power by the 1989 U.S.
invasion that ousted strongman and convicted drug trafficker
Manuel Noriega, ``continued to show a disappointing lack of
political will to address drug corruption and money laundering
concerns,'' the report said.
         Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gelbard said the United
States had held ``ample discussions with Panamanian authorities
about the extraordinarily concerns we have that their financial
sector and non-financial organizations have become the major
centers for money laundering in Latin America.''
         President Clinton, in a determination handed down last
Friday, cited Syria, Burma, Nigeria and Iran for doing too
little to stop illicit drug trafficking.
         The designation means the four countries cannot receive most
U.S. aid and Washington would block granting them loans from
multilateral financial institutions.
         Some State Department officials had recommended Syria be
removed from the list because of modest steps taken to fight the
opium trade in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which is largely
controlled by Damascus.
         But members of Congress and aides to Secretary of State
Warren Christopher objected to the move. Christopher overruled
the lower-level officials who made the recommendation and
ordered Syria retained on the list, U.S. officials said.
         Nigeria was added to the list for the first time because of
a major role Nigerians played in heroin trafficking.
         ``We calculate that some 35 to 40 percent of all heroin
coming into the United States comes from Nigerians who bring it
into this country,'' said Gelbard.
         ``These are not random mules, or individuals who are doing
this on a freelancing basis. These are people working for very
organized groups, which we have felt is with the protection of
government officials,'' he said.
         The report also noted the growing role of Russian criminal
mafias smuggling and distributing heroin grown in Afghanistan.
It said Russia had become a central marketing point for drugs
trans-shipment to Europe.
         The report contained tables for estimated worldwide
production of major drugs.
         Heroin cultivation rose, according to the figures. They
calculated a seven percent increase in cultivation and a 10
percent growth in production in Southeast Asia, and a 5.5
percent increase in cultivation worldwide.