Opium

BOGOTA, Colombia -- After more than a decade of criticism over its efforts to combat illegal drugs, Colombia has launched a program designed to destroy every poppy and coca plant in the country within two years.The government of President Ernesto Samper also has promised to strengthen the prosecutions of drug traffickers by tightening plea bargain agreements that judicial officials concede often are too lenient.In many ways, however, Colombia's latest efforts in the seemingly endless drug war appear targeted more at Washington, where U.S. frustration with Colombia's inability to control its illicit narcotics trade is at the heart of increasingly acrimonious relations between the nations.

NATURAL OPIUM: SOME TRAVELER'S TALES. Diane Johnson. Knopf.234 pages. $21. Let's be frank: Not everyone loves to travel. Some people are actively unsettled by the notion of leaving the familiar comforts of home to put up with the hazards of voyaging and the peculiarities of parts unknown.Oddly, these are often the very people who seem to travel the most, out of necessity, perversity or a combination of the two. Or perhaps it's simply that those who travel most romanticize it least, knowing as they do about the anxiety, exhaustion and sense of dislocation that are a traveler's constant companions.

Heroin, the addictive opiate shoved into the shadows during the decade-long reign of cocaine, is making an alarming resurgence in Baltimore and other large U.S. cities in purer form than ever.While Baltimore has always had a steady number of intravenous heroin addicts, officials in treatment and law enforcement say more people are getting hooked now because this high quality heroin can be snorted or smoked.One West Baltimore drug trafficker markets his heroin -- up to 92 percent pure -- under the brand name "Unforgettable."

CHINESE ROUNDABOUT: ESSAYS IN HISTORY AND CULTURE.Jonathan D. Spence.Norton.400 pages. $24.95. The antiquity and complexity and density of China as a subject mean and have meant that many people have studied "Chinese studies" rather than China itself. As a result, the Middle Kingdom and Mao's Peking have come to many otherwise intelligent and well-read people as distinctly secondhand, even semi-mythical, impressions. (Alberto Moravia's little volume, "The Red Book and the Great Wall," reflects this traditional difficulty within its very title.

Clemson, South Carolina. -- Are you ready for the fastest jump in heroin use in this country's history? Are you ready for heroin to take the place of cocaine as the illegal drug of choice? Well, get ready, unless we reform our current, federally dominated drug policy.The federal government's marijuana interdiction program has sharply decreased imports. The result: The price of high-quality marijuana has skyrocketed to twice the price of gold. No part of the federal government's drug program operates in a vacuum, however.

Ever since Karl Marx dubbed religion the "opium of the masses" sociologists have debated the role of ideas in human behavior. Does, for example, the fact that unmarried Murphy Brown had a baby on last night's episode of the popular television sitcom simply reflect society's increased tolerance of out-of-wedlock births? Or does it, as some argue, signal that illegitimacy is now OK -- thus encouraging women to emulate the television heroine?One might think Ms. Brown a poor role model for unwed mothers.

From The Sun June 16-22, 1841June 19: Thomas Gorsuch was arrested yesterday and brought before Justice Jones, charged in the deposition of Sarah Hill, with violent threats against her. He gave security in the sum of $50 to keep the peace.June 22: The six negroes advertised yesterday as having escaped from their owner in this city on Saturday last, were arrested on Sunday evening, near the Black Horse Tavern, in Marshall's district, Harford County.From The Sun June 16-22, 1891June 16: Nearly all the crack tennis players of Baltimore, 'N Washington and Wilmington measured skill near Wilmington, Del., yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- Booming Asian production of opium, from which heroin is made, has increased the supply of the drug in the United States and fueled fears of a rise in addiction."

RUILI, China -- Heavily mountainous, cloaked in tropical foliage, thinly patrolled and all but ignored by many neighboring villagers, the more than 1,200 miles of border between Myanmar (formerly called Burma) and China's southwestern Yunnan province is as porous as a sieve.Just in the vicinity of this booming ruralcenter, more than 10,000 travelers a day use eight ferries and a small bridge to legally cross the Ruili River between the two countries, their cargo subjected to a minimum of official scrutiny.