LEAVING COLOMBIA

To the Editor:

Your April 10 front-page account of Colombians fleeing to the United States
and elsewhere as a result of increased instability did not mention a
primary cause of that instability: United States drug prohibition.

Failed prohibitionist policies at home aimed at reducing cocaine
consumption and increased financial assistance to the Colombian military to
fight coca production exacerbate the conditions of the decades-old civil
war in Colombia. Peace and prosperity will continue to elude the Colombian
people until the United States abandons its misguided and unwinnable war on
drugs.

DAVID WEINBERG, New York, April 10, 2001