"LONG LIVE HOLLYWOOD"

Few, such as Alberto Lleras Camargo in the past, by way of his famous 1979
Time editorial ("Colombian Connection"), have dared to question
anti-narcotics policy based on eradication and criminalization of
consumption, calling it ineffective, unbalanced, and charging that it
represented a double standard. Now, thanks to the movie, "Traffic," and the
pragmatism with which some members of the US Republican cabinet are
evaluating anti-narcotics policy, official winds of criticism are blowing.
Thank you, Hollywood.

Drug trafficking is a crucial current of world trade and of
international capital flow. The supply of precursor chemicals and arms
by industrialized countries; the cultivation and harvest of plants
destined for illegal use in the Andean countries or in the Afghani
corridor; the refining process, the exportation of contraband by
individuals that could be Colombian or Mexican, the sale of the
product in Los Angeles or in Madrid by the local Mafia, the laundering
of dollars in pirate banks on Caribbean islands, and financial
speculation at first-rate economic centers, are all multinational
links in the chain whose sales total $550 billion a year. That figure
is somewhere in the neighborhood of Spain's gross domestic product
(GDP); seven percent of the GDP in the United States, or nearly seven
times that of Colombia. The bulk of the business and its uses,
clearly, are links to the first world, some of whose protagonists,
prosecuted by the US justice system, received the benefits of a pardon
by outgoing president Clinton.

The forbidden business has its counterpart in a demand which, despite
fiscal efforts to combat drug trafficking by its primary consumer, the
United States, is still on the rise.

Has the policy against drugs been successful?

The scourge of drug trafficking has caused immense harm and pain to
Colombians: the loss of human lives, environmental damage, forced internal
displacement, the flaring up of the armed conflict, corruption, and a 'get
rich quick' culture, are some of the costs drug trafficking exacts from the
country. Drug consumption also affects millions of young people in the
United States and Europe. Is anti-narcotics policy focused on truly
resolving the problem?

US policy with regard to drug supply and consumption emphasizes
criminalization on home soil and attacking the primary links of the
business. It is not surprising that there should be fiscal concern
upon evaluating the results: while the budget allocated by the US
Federal Government for anti-drug policy has increased by nearly 10
times over 18 ($19.2 billion in 2001 compared with $2 billion in
1983), the number of addicts has not diminished (3.5 million "hard
core" users of cocaine over the entire past decade, an increase from
600, 000 to one million heroine addicts, and nearly one million users
of other substances). As far as the areas where eradication has been
implemented, in the case of coca, what disappears in Bolivia and Peru
reappears in Colombia, and what is eradicated in Caqueta turns up in
Putumayo.

Therefore, the debate is about whether or not it would be more
effective to redirect political spending, investing, for example, in
prevention campaigns and the treatment programs for addicts.

With regard to the attack on supply, it must be acknowledged that as
long as consumption is not legalized, Colombia will wait for the
international community to tackle the links attributed to it. There
are 2,000 banks (NY Times, 27 Feb 2001) around the world that receive
primary deposits from the business, which are later laundered on Wall
Street or in Switzerland.

To concentrate on indiscriminate spraying (including in areas such as
Plante, according to the Ombudsman's Office), criminalizing and
displacing the small farmer, has only provoked geographic relocation
of the links in the business.

So, thanks Hollywood, for fanning the flame of independent
criticism.