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United States Support For Colombia   Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs   August 16, 2000

Counternarcotics Efforts in the Andean Region

• Andean net coca cultivation and potential cocaine production continued to decline in 1999 and is now at its lowest level since 1987. Overall Andean net coca cultivation declined to 180,000 hectares in 1999, 4 percent less than the 1998 figure, and 15 percent less than in 1995. Potential cocaine production fell to 765 metric tons, a drop of 7 percent from the 1998 figure, and an 18 percent drop since 1995.

• Aggressive drug crop eradication, interdiction operations, and alternative economic development programs in Peru and Bolivia reduced coca cultivation in those countries 66% and 55%, respectively, since 1995. In large part due to successful counter-narcotics programs in Peru and Bolivia, coca cultivation in the Andean Region has shifted to guerrilla- and paramilitary-controlled territory in Colombia.

ANDEAN POTENTIAL COCAINE PRODUCTION
(Metric Tons)

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Peru	460	435	325	240	175
Bolivia	240	215	200	150	70
Colombia	230	300	350	435	520
Totals	930	950	875	825	765

ANDEAN COCA CULTIVATION
(Hectares)

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Peru	115,300	94,400	68,800	51,000	38,700
Bolivia	48,600	48,100	45,800	38,000	21,800
Colombia	50,900	67,200	79,500	101,800	122,500
Totals	214,800	209,700	194,100	190,800	183,000

• Colombia now supplies more illicit drugs to the United States than any other country in the world. Ninety percent of the cocaine in the U.S. market comes from Colombia as does, according to estimates, up to two-thirds of the heroin on the East Coast.

• The problems in Colombia affect the lives of Americans at home and abroad. Illegal drugs cost our society 52,000 lives and nearly $110 billion dollars each year due to health costs, accidents, and lost productivity.

• Colombia's drug trafficking organizations are a pernicious source of instability. They funnel funds to insurgents and vigilante-like paramilitaries for protection and other services. Meanwhile, the traffickers' relentless intimidating and corrupting influence constitutes a serious threat to the rule of law and free-market democratic institutions in Colombia.

• The Government of Colombia recognizes the severity of the threat and is fully committed to cooperating with the United States on counter-narcotics issues. This is a historic opportunity to provide Colombia the support and material it needs to implement Plan Colombia and to ensure that coca and opium poppy cultivation are eventually eliminated.

• President Clinton's assistance package is fully in line with our $18.5 billion National Drug Control Strategy, which outlines a comprehensive attack on the illicit drug trade -- from eliminating production at the source, interdicting drug shipments, and prosecuting traffickers to reducing U.S. consumption through $6 billion worth of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation programs.

• The supply reduction efforts outlined in Plan Colombia are essential to reducing the availability of illegal drugs and giving domestic U.S. demand reduction programs a better chance of success.

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