By David Haskel

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 3 (Reuter) Today's drug dealers seem more like
sophisticated businessmen than bandits: they use high technology, operate
globally and diversify their products, Latin American experts said on Friday.

"Drug traffickers no longer use telephones or radios. They have become
sophisticated, using equipment that codifies their messages," Aldo Demoz,
head of the Latin American and Caribbean division of the United Nations
Drug Control Program (UNDCP), told Reuters.

Julio Cesar Araoz, head of Argentina's drug enforcement agency, said,
"Drugtrafficking organizations have globalized their task and use high
technology," and said similar tactics should be used by governments to
fight the drug war.

"Latin America and the Caribbean should likewise have a globalized reaction
based on international cooperation. And we have to use the same technology
as the traffickers, because otherwise it looks like a lost battle," he said.

Both experts took part in a weeklong meeting of agencies which fight drug
trafficking in the Americas. The meeting in Buenos Aires which ended on
Friday also focused on synthetic drugs.

"The problem with synthetic drugs, especially amphetaminestyle stimulants,
is that they spread very quickly and are unlikely to ever disappear
completely,'' a statement issued by the experts said on Friday.

The new drugs are cheap and have fancy names like "ecstasy,'' "speed'' or
"ice,'' which attract children and young people.

"The issue of synthetic drugs is almost exclusively restricted to youths,
who start taking them at the ages of 12, 13 or 14,'' Demoz said. "There is
a total lack of information campaigns showing how much longterm damage
these drugs cause. Young people still think they are harmless.''

Tony White, head of the UNDCP, said synthetic drugs are easily made from
chemicals and are sold cheaply. "You can make them in the kitchen,'' he said.

Cocaine and heroin which are made from coca leaves and poppies,
respectively, in more complex processes.

Confiscation of synthetic drugs has been growing at an annual rate of about
16 percent worldwide in recent years.

Experts say instead of displacing traditional drugs like cocaine and
heroine, synthetic drugs are finding new market niches and boosting overall
drug consumption. European experts said that so far most of the ecstasy
confiscated in their countries came from the Netherlands.

Colombia is the world's largest cocaine producer, while the United States
is the biggest consumer. Peru and Bolivia produce the most raw coca leaves
and in recent years have started to manufacture the drug themselves.

White said drug trafficking is an annual market of $400 billion, or eight
percent of total world trade, of which an estimated $100 billion comes from
substances originating in Latin America and the Caribbean.