SENATOR SON OF SLAIN COLOMBIAN CARTEL FIGHTER PROPOSES DRUG LEGALIZATION

A Colombian senator and son of a presidential candidate assassinated
by deceased drug kingpin Pablo Escobar has called for a congressional
debate on the taboo subject of drug legalization.

"The current repressive approach against drug trafficking hasn't
worked despite the huge amounts of blood we Colombians have shed,"
Sen. Juan Manuel Galan, of the opposition Liberal Party, told The
Associated Press on Thursday. "It's time to look at different
options, together with other drug-production nations, as a way to
break the back of the drug traffickers."

Any serious discussion of drug legalization has long been off-limits
in Colombia, in part because the United States leans heavily on the
Andean nation -- the world's largest supplier of cocaine -- to
eliminate drug trafficking at its source. Colombia has received more
than US$4 billion in mostly military U.S. aid since 2000 -- more than
any country outside the Middle East.

Although politicians have backed legalization before, Galan's
proposal for a congressional debate on the issue carries additional
weight because of the high esteem in which Colombians hold his
father, Luis Carlos Galan, who was shot and killed while campaigning
in 1990 for the presidency.

The respected, charismatic candidate was all but assured victory when
his assassination in Bogota was ordered by Escobar, head of the
defunct Medellin cartel, as part of a campaign of terror to prevent
his extradition to the United States, a move he feared that Galan
would support if elected.

Escobar was killed in a shootout with police in 1993, but not before
cartel assassins attacked scores of judges, an attorney general,
Cabinet ministers, journalists and police. Hundreds of other innocent
people died during bombings in Bogota and the western city of
Medellin, but no attack shocked the nation more than the killing of
Galan, now a martyr-like figure in the conflict.

Asked what his father would think about his openness to legalization,
Juan Manuel Galan said: "I think after two decades, seeing the
violent impact of drug trafficking, he would not be closed to new
ideas about how to deliver a final deathblow to the drug traffickers."

While the United States is likely to oppose the discussion, Galan
said, "Colombia has the moral authority to lead this debate at the
international level."

New evidence has called into question the effectiveness of the aerial
spraying of illegal coca crops, a linchpin of the U.S.-led
anti-narcotics strategy.

Despite chemically eradicating a record 144,000 hectares (355,000
acres) of coca last year, the latest U.S. government survey found 26
percent more land dedicated to the plant used to make cocaine in 2005
than in the prior year.

"Two decades into the drug war we continue having illegal mafias that
spread violence across the country, we continue having guerrillas, we
continue having paramilitaries," said Galan, who has yet to receive
his party's backing for the proposed debate. "And despite it all
there's no real solution in sight to the problem."