Second leading national daily El Espectador (liberal party oriented, circ. 140,000) of 4/7 and 4/8 carried a two part report on the anti-drug conference in Lima "Narcotics: a year after Cartagena". The report says that U.S. assistance has been geared more toward the military aspect, and that Europe's assistance has been geared more toward cooperation. Block quotes follow:

"Melvyn Levitsky told those who attended the conference, in an arnet on wednesday, that the U.S. considers drug trafficking a crucial criminal problem which accordingly has to be given high priority. He said that the coca farmers must be considered criminals because they produce coca leaves knowing it is illegal. Confirmed the fear of many coca growers, intellectuals and people who study the drug problem, of what has been described as the growing militarization of the conflict by the U.S."

The Italian representative to the European Parliament, Marco Taradash, in one of the most brilliant speeches of the conference, said that the opposition against the U.S. anti-drug policy is growing in Europe. According to what he said, the only thing prohibition has achieved is an increase in consumption, the transition to the use of increasingly more dangerous substances and the birth of new types of criminal activities.