"We've destroyed 17 laboratories in the past three months, but there must be dozens more," said Gen. Juan Zarate, the chief of Peru's anti-drug police.

"The anti-narcotics policeman is a patriot," reads a sign over the entrance to the barracks of the anti-drug police at one end of this southwestern town.

Heroin and methamphetamine seem to be the main targets of the 30,000+ strong anti-drug police in Yunnan.

The Colombian anti-drug police have at times dropped the distinction altogether.

At present, a small group of United States military advisers give training to Peru's anti-drug police.

Helicopters previously provided by the United States have been transferred to the Mexican anti-drug police, not to the military.

In 2000, the anti-drug police seized a plane carrying cocaine and marijuana on his ranch.

Yunnan's newly strengthened force of 1,300 anti-drug police officers seized 3,185 pounds of heroin last year, up from 646 pounds in 1989.

The anti-drug police are also hampered in spotting small airplanes used to transport drugs from Bolivia to Colombia.

Total acreage of illicit crops grew by 10 percent last year, reaching about 140,000 acres, Jose Leonardo Gallego, the director of Colombia's anti-drug police, said.