New DEA Chief Sees ‘Glimmer of Hope’ : Narcotics: Bonner welcomes report of 45% drop in cocaine use. He warns against any cutback in the expanded U.S. effort against illicit drugs.

Recent statistics showing a sharp drop in cocaine use represent “a glimmer of hope,” the nation’s chief drug enforcer said Wednesday, but they should not weaken the nation’s resolve to continue fighting the narcotics scourge.

“I’m not here to say we’ve turned the corner on illegal drugs,” new Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert C. Bonner said in an interview. He estimated that it will take “easily five years and perhaps 10” of sustained effort before the nation contains the threat.

Bonner’s comments seemed less optimistic than those of President Bush, who hailed the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s finding of a 45% drop in current cocaine use as “the most compelling evidence that drug use is declining significantly” in America.

Bonner, who stepped down as a federal judge in Los Angeles to take the DEA administrator’s post, said that any cutback in the expanded U.S. effort against illicit drugs could result in the reversal of all progress made to date in the drug war.

He replaced John C. Lawn, who retired in March, 1990, as head of the DEA to become an executive with the New York Yankees.

The DEA, which has received substantial budget increases, is seeking further “enhancements” in its fiscal 1992 budget, Bonner said, declining to be more specific because the Office of Management and Budget has not ruled on the Justice Department’s proposed budget.

Another Bush Administration source, however, said that an intense battle is being waged within the executive branch over efforts by OMB to head off further increases in the DEA allocation, which is part of the Justice Department budget.

Bonner said that the reported decline in cocaine use, which has been disputed by critics, was especially welcome after an entire decade in which “all signs were discouraging,” in turn causing a widespread “sense of hopelessness.”

Meanwhile, Bonner expressed caution about the Colombian government’s move to induce major drug traffickers to surrender by assuring them that they will be prosecuted in Colombia and not extradited to the United States.

Asked if the Colombian policy shift is likely to increase prosecution of top traffickers, Bonner said: “I don’t think we know yet.

“The question is whether Colombia’s justice system is capable of doing justice to a major trafficker,” he said.

For that reason, Bonner and other U.S. officials will be watching closely the outcome of the recent surrender of top Medellin cartel figure Fabio Ochoa-Vasquez, who is on DEA’s list of the “dozen most wanted” Colombian drug dealers.

Bonner listed three criteria for determining whether Colombia’s willingness to prosecute defendants achieves justice.

First, he said, the traffickers must receive “a significant period of incarceration.” Next, they should be kept in a setting that prevents them carrying on the drug trade while in prison. Finally, he said, their “vast fortunes (should) be removed and confiscated.”

Negotiations between the traffickers and the Colombian government might lead to their being given reduced sentences, “but the magnitude of their crimes is such that a short prison term would be a manifest injustice,” Bonner said.

Bonner would not specify what he meant by significant prison time but he did allow that a year or less “definitely would be on the short side.”

In contrast to his attitude toward the changes in Colombia, Bonner said he was “gratified to see the efforts and apparent commitment” of Mexico’s President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to interdict cocaine moving through Mexico into the United States. He estimated that at least 70% of U.S.-bound cocaine is being smuggled through Mexico.

“Mexico’s government seems to understand the lessons of Colombia--if you let drug trafficking organizations become too entrenched, they can defy the authority of the government itself,” Bonner said. DEA operations in Peru have “to some extent resumed,” after being suspended along with those of the Peruvian national police because of interference by the miliary, Bonner said. He noted that DEA advisers work with the national police and that “when they suspended, we did.”

The suspension came after the military blocked the drug enforcers from entering a building suspected of storing several hundred kilograms of cocaine. By the time they were allowed to enter, there were no drugs to be found.

Bonner said that he also is concerned over the Peruvian military’s requirement that it receive seven days notice before any anti-drug operations are conducted.

“It will be at least a month or so before we can say how it’s going,” he said.