U.S. DRUG WAR STILL FOCUSES ON SUPPLY OVER DEMAND

It's a matter of balance," said White House Press Secretary Ari
Fleischer, speaking of how to weigh the deaths of two members of a
missionary family against those saved by the war on drugs. But the
details of the Peruvian incident, and its timing, are exposing just
how unbalanced our strategies in the war on drugs have become. What
happened in Peru? The U.S. government and local officials are still
debating details, but in essence, CIA employees spotted a plane
carrying the Bowers family and a pilot and alerted the Peruvian
military of their suspicions the flight may have been carrying drugs.

The Peruvian air force did not make radio contact with the plane
before shooting it down. The Bowers family says the plane was strafed
by gunfire, killing Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter.
Supporters of military-style intervention credit these tactics with
helping to decrease coca production by two-thirds. But supply in
America remains abundant; production has simply moved to other parts
of the region, including Colombia.

Just as we supported military intervention in Peru, we are pushing
forward in Colombia as well. The U.S. Congress recently passed a $1.3
billion "Plan Colombia" to destroy coca farms and seize land held by
guerrillas. Under Plan Colombia, we could strengthen the Colombian
military's ties to right-wing militias tied to drug trafficking and
massacres of civilians. Farmers also charge that anti-cocoa chemical
deforestation harms family food crops as well.

Days before the Summit of the Americas began in Quebec City, a group
of Latin American leaders requested that the United States rethink the
military-style enterprise, which some U.S. analysts believe could
plunge us into an unwinnable Vietnam-style conflict. The Latin
American leaders, including Guatemalan Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu
and former Colombian Foreign Minister Rodrigo Pardo, asked that aid to
Colombia target economic development, which would undercut one leg of
the drug trade.

They also noted, "We believe the United States has a legitimate
interest in reducing the damage done by illegal drug use. But we are
gravely concerned that current policy will cause more harm than good
in Colombia and the region at large -- while having little or no
effect on the drug problems of the consumer countries."

By "consumer countries," they mean nations like the United States,
whose citizens consume billions of dollars worth of cocaine. While the
U.S. government is prepared to spend billions on interdiction, we
consistently underfund drug treatment. Today, a record 2 million
Americans are in prison, a quarter for nonviolent drug crimes. That
fact alone is having a ripple effect through America's towns,
families, economies, even adding to controversies over voting rights.

It must seem appealing to imagine that we can fight the drug war
safely on other people's turf, far from our own streets. In addition
to Plan Colombia, the Bush administration is pushing another $900
million for counter-narcotics programs in the Andes, including Peru.
But there is no way to avoid America's role in supply and demand, and
the human costs of fighting a militarized "war" against drugs.