From: Marnie Regen <[m--eg--n] at [earthlink.net]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: DEA on heroin
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 08:03:37 -0700

Sept 3, 1996

        WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Colombian heroin has become a major threat with 
62 percent of all heroin seized in the United States last year originating in 
South America, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday.
         ``Independent Colombian traffickers have moved into heroin and this 
is no accident. It's a shrewd marketing decision made to capitalize on the 
increased profits that can be derived from heroin trafficking,'' DEA chief 
Thomas Constantine said.
         ``Right now they are positioning themselves to be central players in 
the Western Hemisphere heroin market by the year 2000. They control cocaine 
and they are looking to control heroin,'' he said in a statement.
         In 1989, nearly all of the heroin seized in the United States came 
from Southeast or Southwest Asia, the agency said. But by 1993, heroin from 
South America, mainly Colombia, accounted for 15 percent of all domestic 
seizures, which increased to 32 percent in 1994 and kept surging in 1995.
         The DEA said the availability of high-purity South American heroin 
had led to more overdoses and deaths in the northeast United States. It also 
said heroin consumption nationwide had been rising.
         ``Heroin has become more affordable and more glamorous. We are 
seeing more people snorting heroin or using heroin coupled with crack or 
other forms of cocaine,'' Constantine said.
''Today we are seeing 11th and 12th graders turning to heroin.''
         DEA investigators have found a sharp rise in the number of Colombian 
couriers who have been arrested between 1991 and 1995 for attempting to 
smuggle heroin into the United States.
         Constantine said the agency planned to spend more than $11 million 
over the next two years for domestic heroin enforcement and additional 
amounts internationally to fight heroin trafficking.
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