A WAR THAT CAN'T BE WON

One reason the war on drugs rolls merrily along despite almost a
century of failure is the adamant refusal of officials in charge to
admit they aren't winning. Now, at last, someone has done just that.

John Walters, the White House's top man on the drug file, recently
admitted that despite spending billions of dollars, the latest U.S.
scheme to break the South American cocaine trade has failed to reduce
the supply of cocaine to the United States.

The current policy has its origins in Plan Colombia, a program of drug
war and economic development prepared by Colombian and U.S. officials
in the late 1990s. Canada and many other nations contributed millions
of dollars to the plan, but the big funder was the United States,
which paid for new army units and attack helicopters to go after the
coca fields and those who operate them. The Bush administration has
poured more money into it -- a total of about $3 billion US since 2000.

The main weapon has been aerial spraying of the vast Colombian coca
fields with herbicides not approved for use in the U.S. For several
years, new planting outstripped eradication, but recently, coca
cultivation has shrunk by about one-third. Drug warriors trumpeted
this as a glorious victory. However, until Walters spoke, they didn't
mention that there actually had been no drop in the cocaine supply on
the street.

Then, Walters returned to optimistic form and predicted there will be
a drop any time now.

That's questionable. Prices for coca and cocaine in Colombia haven't
risen, indicating supply hasn't really shrunk, which suggests the
market is adapting to the aerial attacks with greater production
efficiencies or other innovations. Another factor is the rise of
production in Peru and Bolivia at the same time it fell in Colombia,
the opposite of the early 1990s.

Drug hawks also neglect to point out that methamphetamine production
in the U.S. is exploding and that because meth is a stimulant,
consumers often use it instead of cocaine.

If cocaine supplies do drop in the U.S., it may be because of consumer
choice, not government action.

Every attack on drug production in foreign countries has done nothing
but push production from one place to another. George W. Bush should
ask his dad about this. In 1989, the elder president Bush launched his
Andean initiative with the aim of cutting production in half by 1993;
four years and $2 billion later, production was 15 per cent higher.

The U.S. is entitled to waste its money any way it wishes, but
Americans insist on involving others in their folly. When will
officials admit this doesn't work and start talking about
alternatives?