FIND NEW STRATEGY FOR WAR ON DRUGS

The war on drugs is beginning to look much like the war in Vietnam. Victory
is elusive, and the public is beginning to lose confidence.

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows
that 75 percent of Americans think the country is losing the war on drugs.
They are particularly frustrated with efforts to stem the flow of drugs
from Latin American nations. A great majority of those polled feel overseas
drug traffickers can never be brought under control.

There are plenty of reasons for this pessimism. Demand for drugs in this
country is still high. Access to illegal drugs isn't close to being curbed.

And when one drug-dealing cartel is crushed, another just moves in to fill
the void. Indeed, despite all the expensive, aggressive campaigns through
the years to cut the supply of drugs from Colombia, 90 percent of the
cocaine on the U.S. illegal drug market comes from this South American nation.

So what is the nation's response to this? To get even tougher, but in a
different way. The United States has been sending military advisers to
Colombia to prepare that nation's army to launch a war on drug dealers.
Such intervention is disquieting - but what would a public that is
skeptical about the war on drugs think about such a policy?

Actually, they might support it. For all the pessimism about the lack of
progress in the war on drugs, Americans in that same poll also believe that
getting tougher with drug dealers and stopping the importation of drugs
should remain a top priority.

Of course we think this way. We are not going to surrender, nor should we
ever surrender, to the dealers who hook our children on drugs, ruin
families and drive up the crime rate as addicts kill or rob to pay for
their next fix.

But passing tougher laws, filling more jails, hiring more police officers
and drug enforcement agents and putting the overseas cartels out of
business has been our priority. And this tactic, by itself, is not good enough.

President Bush's administration is developing its drug strategy - and is
setting the right goal. A Bush spokesman says the president "favors a
balanced approach to combat drugs based on education, treatment and law
enforcement."

Finding this balance, however, and then executing a plan that has the right
mix of intervention, prevention and interdiction is the way to making headway.

Hopefully, Bush will be more innovative and ultimately more successful with
his anti-drug campaign than his predecessors in the White House. He has to
be. The country is rapidly losing faith in its government's ability to get
a handle on the nation's drug problem.

Americans need to see that this is a war that can be won.