FIGHT DRUG WAR ON HOME FRONT

Spend a few billion U.S. dollars cracking down on drug lords in Colombia,
and they move to Peru. Throw a few billion into an anti-drug effort in
Peru, and they'll go to the next country.

We'll run out of billions before the drug cartels run out of countries.

So, what's the answer to the wave of illicit drugs pouring into the United
States?

How about asking our citizen-buyers to say no, then insisting they say no -
and finally giving them the choice of saying no or going to jail?

Harsh measures - but does anybody have a better idea?

We've lost the war on the drug-production end. We'll have to go to work on
the drug-consumption end.

It's not waving a white flag to concede that we can't win drug wars in
drug-producing foreign countries. It's a matter of facing facts. Consider
what we're up against:

Drug traffickers can move their operations to other countries faster than
U.S.-supported nations can spray-kill drug crops inside their own borders.
And the quick emergence of Peru as a substitute producing nation for
Colombia makes it clear that we're in a losing battle. The cartels not only
expanded their production, they've expanded their shipping bases to include
such countries as Spain, Albania and the Netherlands.

In addition, drug cartels have developed new chemical processes that allow
them to slip cocaine past drug-sniffing dogs and the eyes of observers. The
drug lords add charcoal and other chemicals to cocaine to transform it into
a black substance that has no smell and does not react when subjected to
the usual chemical tests for cocaine.

In that form, the substance can be shaped to look like metal molding or a
wide variety of harmless-looking toys or mechanical parts that can even be
colored red, yellow and blue. It can even be made to resemble common
acetate sheets. Inside the United States, traffickers use acetone or
another chemical to turn it back into cocaine paste.

If that isn't enough, consider the ''super go-fast boats'' that have been
built by the drug lords. The boats can easily outrun Coast Guard cutters
and are being used as drug transports in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

We're going to have to look again at our battle plan. We're fighting the
drug war on the wrong front.

The other front, unfortunately, is our own home front, and the enemy
becomes our own people.

Regardless, the war against drugs will ultimately have to be fought here at
home.

It's a fact that fact we've dodged too long - and to no avail.