During a recent British Gas luncheon, Manning said that the US was initially concerned about drugs, but that since 9/11 the focus was on terrorism.

"We find that concern about drugs has gone to the back burner," Manning said.

"The drug cartels in South America are no less active today than they were two or three or five years ago."

The US has publicly said that they have withdrawn military aid to this country, including assistance for the war on drugs, because of Trinidad and Tobago's support for the International Criminal Court.

In June the United States DEA broke up an international heroin smuggling ring with the arrest of 22 people, one of them Trinidad and Tobago citizen Gabriel Hernandez, who was later extradited.

Hernandez pleaded guilty of conspiring to import heroin into the US when he was extradited.

The drug ring is believed to have smuggled more than 200 kilos of heroin since 2004 and worth over US$14 million into the United States.

A DEA article published on the agency's website said that during the 10-month investigation Trinidadian, US and Ecuadorian authorities seized close to 28 kilos of heroin.

Six kilos of the narcotics were seized at the Piarco International Airport while there have been heroin-related arrests at Crown Point in Tobago and at Pier 1, Chaguaramas.

Heroin has a local street value starting at $600,000 a kilo based on its purity.

The DEA said that the smuggling ring's leaders, Javier Alexander Alvarez Monroy, a former police officer in Bogota, Colombia, and Marc Klindt, used couriers in Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador to smuggle heroin.

The couriers, the DEA said, smuggled between three and five kilogrammes of heroin per trip concealed within the lining of clothes.

The DEA in the article praised the Ministry of National Security, Central Authority Department and the Counter Crime and Narcotics Task Force, headed by Snr Supt Raymond Craig.

In March this year the US State Department, in its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2006, said that narco-traffickers were "increasingly using Trinidad and Tobago as a transshipment point for cocaine."

The report, also stated that the DEA "believes there has been an increase in the amount of heroin transiting the country."

Chemicals from this country are also being illegally shipped to South American drug factories in Colombia and Bolivia for the production of powdered cocaine according to the State Department.

Precursor chemicals originating from Trinidad and Tobago have been found in illegal drug labs in Colombia.

Heroin smuggling through Trinidad and Tobago has been on the increase since 2003, according to local narcotics police.

Between 2003 and beginning of 2005 police, mainly the Organised Crime Narcotics and Firearms Bureau, have seized a reported 39.275 kilos of heroin-worth about $23.6 million.

From 1999 to 2002, there were no major heroin busts, but 564 grammes were seized in one raid in 2000.

The State Department in its report said that a total of 15.58 kilos of heroin were seized in 2005 alone.

In 2006 so far a reported 18 kilos have been seized at a street value of $10.8 million.

Heroin is usually taken by injection intravenously, intramuscularly or under the skin, smoked or sniffed.

Effects of the drug last three to six hours.

Heroin is said to be more harmful than cocaine and because its preferred use is through injection, heroin addiction can lead to the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases.

Local narcotics police said that while they believe that more than 95 per cent of the heroin coming through here leaves the country they are fearful that increased smuggling could lead to heroin abuse in Trinidad and Tobago because of easy supply.