RETHINK PLAN U.S.

The Washington Times editorial of 6 March 2001, "Rethink Plan Colombia,"
muddles the issue. Colombia does not need a new strategy. Colombia's
problem arises from the United States' prohibition policy and our penchant
to blame our drug problem on the cocaine producing countries.

Drug abuse in the United States cannot be attributed to the coca that grows
on the Andean hillsides. Indonesia was the leading producer of cocaine at
the beginning of the 20th-Century and is capable today of producing all the
world's consumption. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, during his
Senate confirmation hearings in January, said that illicit drug use is
"overwhelmingly a demand problem. If demand persists, its going to find
ways to get what it wants, and if it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be
someplace else."

Former President Clinton acknowledged America's outrageous demand for drugs
when he stated in 1997: "With less than 5 percent of the world's
population, the United States consumes nearly half of the world's illicit
drugs." Our government tried to curb the appetite of the few drug addicts
in our society in 1920 by prohibiting the open and legal market for cocaine
and narcotics that had existed for 144 years without crime, crisis, or
catastrophe.

The unexpected consequence of prohibition has been a greater than fourfold
increase in the percentage of addicts in the population. It has also
resulted in a significant increase of all the drug-related horrors that our
government tries to deter drug abuse, overdose deaths, intoxication,
dysfunctional families, cocaine babies, etc. All American's have suffered
from the stupendous blunder of prohibition.

The government continually repeats the same actions in the War on Drugs
expecting a different result. However, the supply of illegal heroin and
cocaine on the streets grows greater and the price declines. Law
enforcement of prohibition is exacerbating the drug problem rather than
controlling it. The government cannot show us a single addict forced from
the drug habit for a lack of illegal drugs to buy.

Our government is compounding the mess prohibition made at home with a
"Vietnam like" incursion to eradicate coca crops in Columbia. It has only
succeeded in further destabilizing the government that is locked in a
4-decades-old civil war with the narco-guerrillas. Our actions are
impacting the entire Andean region. Yet, cocaine and heroin still flow from
the area to satisfy American's appetite.

Without throwing anyone in jail, the United States has dramatically reduced
the consumption of cigarettes over the past 30 years. Per capita
consumption of alcohol has declined by 10% in the past decade. This was
achieved with education and persuasion, the same methods America used to
reduce drug addiction before prohibition.

We have thrown the profits of the drug trade to the enemies of society. Tax
revenues that could provide programs of education, prevention, and
treatment are forfeited, while antidrug bureaucrats squander billions of
tax dollars in a futile attempt to stem the flow of illicit drugs across
our borders.

Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans in his 1932 campaign, "Rather than
combating intemperance, prohibition encouraged its spread. We have depended
too largely upon the power of government action. The experience of nearly
one hundred and fifty years under the Constitution has shown us that the
proper means of regulation is through the States, with control by the
Federal Government limited to that which is necessary to protect the States
in the exercise of their legitimate powers."

President Bush should learn from FDR's experience and return the control
and regulation of drugs back to the States. He will find guidance in the
evidence from the more effective and less oppressive ways of our forebears.

Lt. Col. Robert H. Dowd, USAF-Ret.

Colonel Dowd is an independent researcher and author of the book, "The
Enemy Is Us--How to Defeat Drug Abuse and End the War on Drugs."