PERU TRAGEDY

A Balanced War On Drugs Must Go Forward

The mistaken downing in Peru of a plane carrying missionaries, not drugs,
has added fuel to the raging debate in the United States over the war on drugs.

A recent survey by The Pew Research Center found that 74 percent of
Americans say the drug war is being lost. Doubts about foreign anti-drug
aid, such as the United States is investing in Peru, are particularly
acute. But Americans aren't sure about prevention or treatment, either,
according to this survey.

This conflict stems from the fact that the U.S. government has never fought
a balanced, reasoned war against drugs. We've always shortchanged treatment
and prevention in favor of law enforcement. But while we need to spend more
on reducing the demand, that doesn't mean we should spend less on
interdiction and enforcement. We need to do both, and we need to do both
better.

The shooting down of the missionary plane by a Peruvian military jet,
killing Roni Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, was a stupid,
avoidable act. And the involvement of a drug interdiction plane under
contract to the CIA, even if it tried to stop the attack, means the United
States bears a measure of responsibility. Washington must make sure it
never happens again.

But this accident shouldn't become an excuse to reduce efforts to interdict
drug-laden planes flying from Peru to Colombia. In the past six years, 30
drug-trafficking planes have been shot down by Peruvians, and dozens more
forced to land, with their drug shipments captured. The cultivation of
coca, the precursor to cocaine, has declined by two-thirds in Peru in that
same time. The legacy of the deaths of Roni Bowers and her daughter should
not be that drug traffickers are given free rein in South America.

Our nation's drug control efforts should not pit interdiction against
demand reduction. We need to increase our spending on treatment and
prevention, while maintaining our efforts in Latin America. The federal
government spends $20 billion on drug control, with more than half going
toward law enforcement and interdiction.

Studies by research institutions from RAND in Santa Monica to the Research
Triangle Institute in North Carolina show that increasing treatment reduces
drug abuse, along with attendant crime and health-care costs. A dollar
spent on treatment returns seven by cutting the costs of health care,
criminal justice and lost productivity. Sounds like a good investment.

Congress is grappling with funding now. The bipartisan Drug Abuse,
Education, Prevention and Treatment Act of 2001 would allocate $900 million
a year to treatment and prevention. That sum shouldn't be whittled down; if
anything, it should be expanded.

A re-examination of our national drug policy is a proper response after
this tragedy in Peru. But halting airborne drug interdiction over South
America isn't the right thing to do. We need to spend more on the war on
drugs at home without spending less abroad.