DRUG WAR

WASHINGTON -- Regarding the proposed use of Fusarium oxysporum fungus
to eradicate coca in Colombia ("Colombia agrees to test herbicide on
coca, Pressure from U.S. overcomes environmental damage concerns,"
News, July 6), I'm appalled at the ignorance and recklessness of drug
warriors.

Even if every last plant in Latin America were killed by a mutation in
the fungus, drug users would continue to get high. As long as there is
a demand, there will be a supply. Cut off the flow of cocaine and
methamphetamine production will boom.

Thanks to past successes at eradicating marijuana in Latin America,
the corresponding increase in U.S. domestic cultivation has made
marijuana America's No. 1 cash crop. Kids who cannot buy marijuana
have been known to inhale a host of deadly, yet legal chemicals to get
high.

No deadly fungus or aerial spraying of toxic herbicides in Colombia
will make the world drug-free. For the same reasons that alcohol
Prohibition failed in the United States in the early 1900s, the drug
war has been doomed from the start. We've already sacrificed the
Constitution to the failed drug war--the Bill of Rights is pretty much
irrelevant due to drug exemptions. Jeopardizing the Earth's ecosystem
by introducing a biologically engineered killer fungus with a tendency
to mutate is a bit much.

Robert Sharpe, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, George Washington
University