DRUG CROP ERADICATION IS ACCELERATING ENVIRONMENTAL DECAY

Commentary columnists F. Andy Messing and Patrick J. Oswald are correct in
stating that cultivating and processing drug crops cause extensive damage
to forests, soils, rivers and air quality ("Greening of the drug war," June
20). The authors, however, mistakenly argue that the crop eradication
strategy pursued in Colombia will "reverse this negative process."

Eradication is accelerating environmental decay. In the past five years,
Colombia's farmers have planted more than 1 hectare of coca for each of the
115,000-odd hectares destroyed in aerial spraying campaigns, indicating
that the coca frontier and the pollution associated with it are expanding
ever farther into the Amazonian jungle.

This unfortunate cycle is likely to continue unless farmers find
economically attractive alternatives to coca or until world demand for
cocaine - now estimated at 500 tons or more annually - is reduced
substantially.

RENSSELAER LEE
McLean