COUNTERPOINT: AMERICA'S ILL-CONCEIVED WAR ON DRUGS

The United States is making a terrible mistake in pouring money into
Colombia to destroy drug sources. The "war on drugs" is our internal
problem, not the problem of Colombia or any other country that grows the stuff.

First, the U.S. plan throws money down the drain. Our huge demand for drugs
and willingness to pay whatever they cost will ensure plenty of sources
around the world. Cut off the Colombian supply, and other farmers will move
into this profitable market.

Second, we are giving massive support to the very sort of government we
abhor: government by military force. We have seen a long dismal history of
bloody oppression in the countries of Central and South America. How can we
justify handing over millions to a government to destroy its own farmers?
Farmers will not be dissuaded from planting a crop that is many times more
profitable than anything else they can grow. Government "persuasion" will
surely meet local resistance. No cure for that but to wipe out the
unrepentant farmers -- with the financial support, and thus the blessing,
of the United States. This in a country where the farmers are the demos in
democracy.

Worst of all is the long-term result of drawing another part of the world
into our own domestic problem. Our country did this once before not very
long ago. I don't think Americans realize the frightful cost of the Cold
War to other continents. In those bad old days, we didn't fight the Soviet
Union directly, but instead both sides poured weapons into Africa. By
exporting our own war overseas, we created within already unstable
societies a capacity for murder on a giant scale. Living and working for 13
years in Africa, both West and East, my husband and I saw the grim results
of U.S. and Russian "foreign aid" -- machine guns for everyday burglaries,
automatic weapons in land disputes between villages. By deluding ourselves
that Colombia can solve our drug problem, we will guarantee for her and
neighboring countries a bloody and dangerous future.

I beg you to urge the U.S. government not to support this ill-conceived
plan. The war on drugs, like charity, begins at home. There are some things
we could do here with the money; over there it will only kill far more
Colombians than drugs ever killed Americans.