PLAN COLOMBIA

Why Finance More Drug War Failures?

Two days after President Bush promised $3.7 billion more in aid to
fight cocaine trafficking in Colombia, Sacramento police and federal
Drug Enforcement Administration agents announced the largest crack
cocaine bust in the city's history. Police seized seven pounds of
crack and two pounds of pure cocaine Tuesday. The drugs' estimated
street value was a modest $375,000.

The juxtaposition of the two events, the president's promise of yet
more aid for drug fighting in Colombia and the record cocaine seizure
in Sacramento, is instructive. Over the last seven years, U.S.
taxpayers have spent $4.7 billion to finance Plan Colombia, under
which the Colombian government sprayed millions of acres with
herbicides to eradicate coca fields and launched military offensives
against guerrillas. It has had minimal impact on the availability or
price of cocaine in the United States.

An estimated 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in this county still
originates in Colombia. According to statistics compiled by the White
House Office on Drug Control Policy, street prices for cocaine fell
from $200 a gram in 2003 to below $140 in October 2006. At the same
time, purity of the drug rose from 60 percent to 70 percent.
Obviously, the cocaine supply remains robust.

Critics within Colombia point out that U.S.-financed eradication
efforts have produced thousands of refugees and that the spraying
kills not just coca but legal crops such as cassava, plantains and
sugar cane, leaving small farmers with nothing. Money promised for
economic development for alternatives to the lucrative drug trade
never materialized. Meanwhile, coca growing has moved to new areas
within Colombia, including the country's fragile national parks, and
other countries in the region, destabilizing them in the process.

While foolishly pledging to continue funding these failed
interdiction policies, the president did acknowledge during his visit
that "The United States has an obligation to reduce the demand for
drugs." He is right about that.

U.S. efforts should be focused in our own communities, on, in his
words, "an obligation to reduce the demand." Don't waste billions
more in Colombia. Fight drug traffickers on the U.S. streets. Use the
money for local police and prosecutors, for drug treatment and
education, for economic development, housing, job training and
after-school programs.

Ultimately, cutting demand and giving those mired in poverty a real
chance to make a decent living outside the drug trade are the best
ways to win a war on drugs, in the United States or in Colombia.