WAR ON DRUGS NOT YIELDING MUCH FRUIT

The State Department's annual report on the war on drugs says the
international effort faced "serious challenges" in 2000 but "continued to
bear fruit."

The fine print reveals a much more discouraging picture: Plenty of
challenge, but very little fruit.

The U.S. government spent about $18 billion on international anti-drug
programs last year.

During that time, worldwide opium poppy (heroin) cultivation grew 17
percent but remained well below its all-time high levels of the mid-1990s;
coca (cocaine) plantings increased marginally and the production of
synthetic methamphetamine (meth) and similar drugs has been increasing at a
frightening rate.

From 1994 to 2000, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the
number of meth labs raided by federal officers increased from 224 to 1,810,
not counting lab discoveries by local and state officers. In Oklahoma
alone, officers uncovered 781 meth labs last year.

The meth family of stimulants includes "Ecstasy" and other powerful and
dangerous substitutes for heroin or cocaine.

Ecstasy came into vogue in the 1990s along with the "rave" dance craze
among young people in Europe. It now has a worldwide following, including a
market in the United States. A University of Michigan study whows that in
2000 more American teenagers used ecstasy than cocaine. In one year, the
percentage of 12th graders reporting use of Estasy rose from 5.6 percent to
8.2 percent.

"The relative ease of manufacturing (meth products) from readily available
chemicals," said the State Department report, "appeals as much to small
drug entrepreneurs as to the large international syndicates.

"It eliminates the need to rely on vulnerable crops, such as coca or opium
poppy. Synthetics allow individual trafficking organizations to control the
whole process, from manufacture to sale on the street. They also have large
profit margins and can be made anywhere."

Meth-based drugs are now being produced around the globe -- from North
Korea to Mexico to Poland. In Southeast Asia, meth has displaced heroin as
the main drug menace. It is marketed by the same organizations that produce
heroin.

U.S. government drug agents seized 132 metric tons of cocaine in 1999.
There is little evidence that it reduced the use of the drug or the easy
availability of it on the street. At best, it would have a tendency to
raise the street price -- and coincidentally, to increase incentive for
production.

The good news is that agents managed to reduce production of drugs in Peru
and Bolivia. The bad news is the lost production is more than made up in
Colombia and other countries.

But the real bad news is that even if, by some miracle, the war on drugs
could drastically reduce the supplies of cocaine and heroin, the users
would find handy, easy-to-buy homemade substitutes.

The answer to the drug problem is not to cut off the supply. It is,
somehow, to reduce demand. That means rehabilitation of problem users and
preventing young people from taking up the habit in the first place.

That is no easy task. But a start could be made by diverting a good share
of that $18 billion now being spent on failed drug interception programs to
education and rehabilitation.

Experience suggests that it would be a lot more effective. It couldn't be
any less.

Alex Adwan is senior editor of the Tulsa World.