WE WON'T WIN

Colombia Isn't Our Problem; Drug Use Is

The Small Business Administration spends about $1 billion a year aiding the millions of small enterprises that are the backbone of this nation's economy.

Earlier this week, President Clinton gave more than that to the government of Colombia, in an effort to stabilize the nation that is paralyzed by the drug trade and revolutionary armies from the left and right.

What's in it for us is, according to Clinton, a major victory in our war on drugs.

For a very smart man who has served as president of the United States for eight years, the statement is almost laughably naive. The $1.3 billion that the U.S. has committed to Colombia may help stabilize the nation's government. It may help put down the rebels. And it may make a sizable dent in the drug trade that funnels enormous quantities of cocaine and heroin into this country.

But it won't slow the flow of drugs. That war has raged for more than 30 years, and we're still losing. If the Colombians succeed in shutting down some of the growing and processing enterprises that dot that country's landscape, then the drug lords will simply step over a mountainous border or two into another land of opportunity. The supply-and-demand economic model is inevitable -- as long as Americans crave drugs, dealers will find a way to provide them.

In all the years of America's drug war, the government has committed billions to interdiction, and comparative pennies to treatment and prevention. Isn't it time to stop deluding ourselves? Until we eliminate demand, our streets will be awash in drugs. Until we create a massive treatment and education program -- bigger than the interdiction effort; at least as well-funded as a Small Business Administration -- we will continue to lose the war, no matter how many little battles we claim to win.

It's simple, really. America has a drug problem. America needs to kick it. We do that by healing the sick and educating the vulnerable. Why doesn't Washington get it?