YOU CALL THIS A 'WAR'?

This is some war, this war on drugs.

Tracked by a CIA jet, an unarmed Cessna carrying American missionaries is
shot out of the sky by a Peruvian Air Force chase plane. Bullets kill
Ronnie Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity.

Oops, says Peru.

Oops, says the United States.

Bad mistake, folks. We're really, really sorry.

But what if the Cessna had been ferrying dopers, as first suspected? Would
the shoot-down have put even a spoon-sized dent in the mountain of cocaine
that's shipped out of South America every month?

Nope.

This is some war. U.S. taxpayers spend almost $2 billion annually to fight
drug smugglers in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and other producer countries.

We've sent troops and ``trainers'' and some of our fanciest toys: ground
radars, AWACs planes, Citations, Blackhawk attack helicopters, Huey
transports, you name it.

The results? Cocaine is as cheap and bountiful as ever. Heroin, made from
Colombian-grown poppies, is going gangbusters.

On the home front, pot is readily available in a smorgasbord of potent
domestic strains. For clubbers, it's easier to score Ecstasy tablets than
Altoids.

The drug war has taken on an air of weary charade. Cops posing as crack
dealers lock up buyers by the vanload. Other cops posing as buyers lock up
the dealers. Next night, they go out and do it all over again.

Not a week passes in Miami without TV reporters hustling to the scene of
some ``late-breaking'' bust: another cargo container at the port, another
rusty freighter on the river, another grow-house in the suburbs.

It's the same old scene over and over: the seizure, the press conference,
the dope laid out for trophy display -- as if it actually amounted to
something.

It doesn't. Walk out the door, and you still can find any drug you want,
any time of the day, without burning more than a few gallons of gas. This
is true almost everywhere in the country.

Dope is still abundant not because the cops and the feds are inept; for the
most part, narcotics officers are good at what they do.

Unfortunately, the mission is utterly futile, no matter how many tons they
intercept, or how much cash they seize.

Nor has arresting people accomplished much except filling our jails and
prisons beyond capacity. Twenty years ago, about 46,000 Americans were
incarcerated for drug crimes. Today, there are 10 times as many. That
number would be impressive if it had led to a commensurate reduction in
trafficking, but it hasn't.

Still, everybody's got a piece of the action -- the DEA, the FBI, CIA,
Customs, the Coast Guard, the military and thousands of local police agencies.

The anti-drug infrastructure is as vast as it is scattered, bureaucracy
piled upon bureaucracy. Like most wars, this one has become a big business
for both sides.

According to the Justice Department, the DEA's budget has grown from about
$75 million in 1973 to $1.55 billion last year. During that same period,
the total federal anti-drug budget mushroomed from $700 million to $17.8
billion.

By the government's own estimate, more than $185 billion in tax dollars has
been spent trying to stamp out dope over the last 27 years -- with
virtually no change in the illicit supply, or in the cost.

To say the drug war is a failure is like saying the Hindenburg was short a
few fire extinguishers.

The only hopeful news on the drug front comes from the least glamorous
approach -- education and rehabilitation. Recent surveys show that grass
and cocaine use have leveled off or declined among teens.

Meanwhile, many states have stopped jailing first- and second-time
offenders because it costs too much, and it doesn't deter them from using
again. Instead, special drug courts steer defendants toward treatment
programs, sobriety and gainful employment.

Attacking the demand for drugs is a slow and frustrating process, but it's
more cost-effective than chasing after bandit suppliers, who are replaced
as soon as they crash or get busted.

There's exactly zero chance of stopping coca cultivation in Colombia and
Peru as long as Americans back home are sucking down crack by the metric ton.

Yet after all these years and billions of dollars, Washington still doesn't
get it. We're still playing the star-spangled cowboy, chasing Cessnas
across the Amazon.

This is some screwed -up war.