DRUG WARS

Spend The Money At Home

The pesticide attack on Colombia's drug farms continues and the results are
at best dubious and at worst dangerous.

Reports have come in that children in southern Colombia have developed
sores on their skin, potatoes and onions are dying, citizens have become
sick and drinking water is contaminated.

Politicians, Indian groups and farmers blame the problems on the
U.S.-funded anti-narcotics program that dumps glyphosate -- the chemical
used in herbicide products such as RoundUp -- on Colombian farms growing
coca and heroin poppies.

President Bush's $1.3 billion Plan Colombia is a coordinated assault with
the government of Colombia. This plan faces the same problems as other such
plans. When coca or poppy farmers' crops are destroyed, they simply move
their operations. The ones who pay the heaviest price are the families who
raise legitimate crops and must remain on their land.

And there is a growing suspicion that some of the $1.3 billion is being
siphoned off by government officials for their own gain or to bankroll a
military that has strong ties to right-wing paramilitary groups and a
questionable human rights record.

The drug problems will never be eased or erased as long as there is a demand.

Whether the chemicals being dropped on Colombia are causing the problems
there is yet to be proven. But it is almost a certainty that $1.3 billion
spent in the United States for treatment and drug education would do a lot
more good and cause a lot less harm.