TIME FOR CHANGE, A CHANGE OF PLANS

President Bush has an opportunity to set revolutionary drug policy. He has a
chance to try something that might actually work.

Bush is talking with Colombian President Andres Pastrana about a $1.3
billion aid package. As part of this deal, Bush will ask Pastrana what he is
doing to curb the supply of cocaine that is coming into the United States.
Pastrana might well ask what American leaders have done to curb the demand.

The answer is nothing effective.

The War on Drugs has been going on for decades. Despite increasing
expenditures to intercept illegal drugs coming into the country, the amount
of narcotics actually getting through continues to rise.

This pattern is clearly documented and has been consistent for four decades.

In business, when expenditures rise and results dwindle, effective leaders
try something different. In government, leaders throw more and more money at
the failed policy. And they do that year after year.

What's been lacking so far is a leader with the courage to suggest it's time
for a change.

There is no prospect for winning this war on drugs as it is now being
fought. Efforts by law enforcement to intercept drugs might be part of the
solution. It's clear that those efforts will not succeed alone.

If we are to stop being the world's greatest market for illegal drugs, we
must do something to curb the demand.

The economics of the drug trade are such that law enforcement agencies
cannot - by their efforts alone - make any appreciable dent in the cartels'
bottom line.

Law enforcement cannot seize enough shipments to take the profit out of the
business. So cartels continue to sell drugs here.

What could take the profit out of this business? A sharp decrease in
consumption.

What will it take to do that? More credible efforts to convince individual
Americans to stop a behavior that is destructive individually and socially.
More money for the treatment of addicts. Less money wasted on locking up
people whose only crime is their addiction.

Every thinking American knows it's vital to curb the volume of illegal drugs
entering this country. No one seriously argues for a vision of the future
that entails millions of people hopelessly addicted to narcotics.

What people want from the White House is a strategy that doesn't come with a
proven record of failure.