REPLAN COLOMBIA

No other sight speaks more plainly of the U.S. obsession with externalizing
responsibility for its domestic drug problem than that of U.S.-bankrolled
helicopters and planes flying around South America dropping tons of toxic
chemicals on peasant farms. Washington's US$1.3-billion contribution to
"Plan Colombia" has, quite predictably, accomplished nothing. With the help
of U.S. funds, large swaths of coca crops in southern Colombia have been
fumigated. Many of the affected peasants simply moved their operations
further into the jungle. Where they have given up, peasants in neighbouring
countries have been only too glad to take up the slack. A U.S. Senate
committee investigating the efficacy of Plan Colombia found the initiative
has had little effect on the flow of cocaine to the United States.

But there is some good news. President Geroge W. Bush has proposed a
US$882-million aid package that would apply funds to the social and
economic problems that drive peasants in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru,
Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil into the dangerous and illegal business of
feeding the West's drug habit. The new plan would finance crop substitution
programs, improved infrastructure and corruption eradication campaigns in
impoverished rural areas. Like the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia, Mr.
Bush's new proposal is informed by the false view that the drug trade is
best tackled almost exclusively at the supply end of the trade; but at
least it goes to the economic roots that underpin the supply train, rather
than its agricultural manifestation. Still, the United States would get the
best value for its drug-policy dollar by keeping its money at home. If the
goal is to stop drug use, then treatment of users, not interdiction or
eradication of supplies, is the best investment.