NOT WINNING THE WAR ON DRUGS

According to the White House, this country is scoring big wins in the
war on drugs, especially against the cocaine cartels. Officials
celebrate that cocaine seizures are up -- leading to higher prices on
American streets. Cocaine use by teenagers is down, and, officials
say, workplace tests suggest adult use is falling.

John Walters, the White House drug czar, declared earlier this year
that "courageous and effective" counternarcotics efforts in Colombia
and Mexico "are disrupting the production and flow of cocaine."

This enthusiasm rests on a very selective reading of the data.
Another look suggests that despite the billions of dollars the United
States has spent battling the cartels, it has hardly made a dent in
the cocaine trade.

While seizures are up, so are shipments. According to United States
government figures, 1,421 metric tons of cocaine were shipped through
Latin America to the United States and Europe last year -- 39 percent
more than in 2006. And despite massive efforts at eradication, the
United Nations estimates that the area devoted to growing coca leaf
in the Andes expanded 16 percent last year. The administration
disputes that number.

The drug cartels are not running for cover.

Mexico and parts of Central America are being swept up in
drug-related violence. Latin Americans are becoming heavy consumers
of cocaine, and traffickers are opening new routes to Europe through
fragile West African countries. Some experts argue that the rising
price of cocaine on American streets is mostly the result of a strong
euro and fast-growing demand in Europe.

Workplace drug tests notwithstanding, cocaine use in the United
States is not falling. About 2.5 percent of Americans used cocaine at
least once in 2006, the same percentage as in 2002, according to the
Department of Health and Human Services.

While cocaine use has fallen among younger teenagers, 12th graders
are using more: 5.2 percent used cocaine last year -- up from 4.8
percent in 2001 and 3.1 percent at the low point in 1992, says a
Monitoring the Future survey done by the University of Michigan.

All this suggests serious problems with a strategy that focuses
overwhelmingly on disrupting the supply of drugs while doing far too
little to curb domestic demand.

Washington spent $1.4 billion on drug-related foreign assistance last
year -- mostly to equip Colombia's security forces and spray coca
crops in the Andes. It spent another $7 billion on drug-related law
enforcement and interdiction efforts at home and abroad. It spent
less than $5 billion on education, prevention and treatment programs
at home to curtail substance abuse.

The counternarcotics effort has produced some successes. Marijuana
use in the United States has declined since 2002, the earliest year
for which the government has comparable data. Teenage use of other
drugs, like methamphetamine, has fallen sharply. With American aid,
Colombia's armed forces have severely weakened the FARC guerrillas, a
major player in the drug trade.

The next administration should continue to help Latin American
governments take on the traffickers. But it must learn from the
current strategy's shortcomings.

Eradication efforts are most likely to have more success if more
money is spent on programs to wean coca growers from the business and
improve the lives of their families and communities. Mexico, in
particular, is in deep trouble, and the next American president
should build on the Bush administration's plans to provide
counternarcotics aid. There needs to be a different mix: less money
for equipment for security forces and more for economic development
and programs to reform and strengthen Mexico's judicial system.

Above all, the next administration must put much more effort into
curbing demand -- spending more on treating drug addicts and less on
putting them in jail. Drug courts, which sentence users to treatment,
still deal only with a small minority of drug cases and should be
vastly expanded. Drug-treatment programs for imprisoned drug abusers,
especially juvenile offenders, must also be expanded.

Over all, drug abuse must be seen more as a public health concern and
not primarily a law enforcement problem. Until demand is curbed at
home, there is no chance of winning the war on drugs.