SCHEER IS RIGHT

In his excellent May 30th column Robert Scheer rightfully criticizes the
Bush administration for giving $43 million to Afghanistan's brutal Taliban
regime in exchange for what is sure to be a short-lived commitment to
eradicating the poverty-stricken country's opium crop.

Apparently the self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are
incapable of applying basic economic principles to drug policy. When the
supply of illicit drugs is successfully limited in one region while demand
remains constant, illicit crop cultivation becomes more profitable else-where.

When Peru's autocratic former president Alberto Fujimori succeeded in
partially eliminating the Peruvian coca crop, production skyrocketed in
Colombia. Creating a global welfare state in which every developing country
is paid not to grow illicit crops is a rather expensive proposition.

The Bush administration needs to drop the drug war hysteria and consider
the more pragmatic policies of European countries. Despite dramatically
lower per capita spending on the drug problem, the Netherlands has
successfully reduced over-all drug use by replacing marijuana prohibition
with regulation. Dutch rates of drug use are significantly lower than U.S.
rates in every category. Separating the hard and soft drug markets and
establishing age controls for marijuana has proven more effective than zero
tolerance. Taxing and regulating marijuana is a cost-effective alternative
to spending tens of billions annually on a failed drug war.

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

Program Officer

The Lindesmith Center -- Drug Policy Foundation

Washington, DC