CON - Morgan Reynolds is the director of the Criminal Justice Center
at the National Center for Policy Analysis and a professor of
economics at Texas A&M University.

Note: This was posted as one page. One OPED following
another, pro & con.

SHOULD CONGRESS OK $1.6 BILLION TO AID COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR?

YES: This Is A Strategic Opportunity

Barry McCaffrey and Thomas R. Pickering

The House recently passed an emergency supplemental appropriations
request that included funding to support the administration's Colombia
initiative.

The 263-146 vote March 30 was a welcome endorsement of a policy
designed to get illegal drugs off America's streets and to strengthen
democracy and human rights in Colombia. As the Senate considers the
proposal, we want to point out why this package is critical.

There is a drug emergency going on in Colombia that has serious
implications for the safety and well-being of our communities. Ninety
percent of the cocaine on our streets and two-thirds of the heroin
seized in the United States either originates in, or transits, Colombia.

Each year, drugs kill 52,000 Americans, almost as many as died in
Vietnam or in Korea, and costs more than $100 billion in accidents,
lost productivity and property damage.

Democracy in Latin America needs to be strengthened, not undermined,
even as we protect our own citizens from drugs. Prompt action is
imperative. Peru and Bolivia have achieved dramatic reductions of 66
percent and 55 percent respectively or more in their coca cultivation
in the past five years, and overall cocaine production in the region
has fallen 18 percent. But this progress is threatened because cocaine
production in Colombia has risen 126 percent.

We have a strategic opportunity to change that. Leaders in all three
countries are strongly committed to attacking the drug trade on all
fronts. Offering our help now could lead to lasting progress against
the supply of drugs.

This plan is not "another Vietnam" as some critics allege. Vietnam was
a full-blown civil war. In Colombia, public support for the guerrillas
and the paramilitary forces is running at about 5 percent for each.
The fighting drags on despite pubic opposition because the drug trade
is fueling these illegal armed groups.

Nor is this just a military program. Indeed, the Colombian
government's plan addresses the full range of challenges facing that
country, including the peace process, the drug trade, democracy and
human rights, the judiciary, and the economy. Colombia's plan also
draws on the contributions, advice and experiences of many other
countries. Most of the plan's $7.5 billion outlay will be for
non-military programs.

Colombia will supply $4 billion, International Financial Institutions
already have provided more than $1 billion, the U.S. is proposing $1.6
billion, and Colombia is approaching Europeans and others for further
help.

We are at a rare moment. Although problems in Colombia have escalated,
a government is in office that has a comprehensive plan to address the
situation in a process that enjoys serious support from its citizens.
This is the best chance we have had to inflict major damage on the
drug supply flowing to our shores.

It is also our best chance to help Colombia strengthen its democracy,
find peace, and repair its economy. Our proposed package will be an
important complement to the $6 billion the U.S. government will spend
on demand reduction in the United States and the $1.9 billion we spend
on interdicting drugs.

As longstanding friends and neighbors of a democratic Colombia, we owe
it to our children and theirs to invest in Colombia's future. It's an
investment in our own.

McCaffrey is the director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy. Pickering is undersecretary of state for political
affairs.

NO: The Money Would Be Wasted

Morgan Reynolds

Government can fix the drug problem. Do you believe that? Probably
not. Polls show four out of five Americans consider our current drug
policy a failure. OK, how about this proposition? The government can
fix the drug problem down in South America. Now there's a real
stretch. The job has been badly botched so far. The more the U.S.
government "invests" in Colombia, the worse it gets.

Colombia is already the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid,
after Israel and Egypt. Colombia has the highest rate of violence in
the world, and assassinations are commonplace. Corruption is out of
control. It's a mess.

Now Congress and the drug bureaucracy want to pour another $1.6
billion down Colombia's military throat, a rich $10,000 per soldier
annually.

Suppose Gen. Barry McCaffrey got his dream result: 100 percent success
in eradicating coca and opium poppy production down in Colombia next
year. Wouldn't that end the drug problem as we know it?

Nope. Coca and opium poppy are cultivated worldwide, and production
would be easily shifted elsewhere. Gen. McCaffrey admits that coca
production has tripled over the past few years in Peru. Domestic
production of methamphetamine, a central nervous stimulant similar to
cocaine, can be quickly expanded too. Lots of "meth" can be cooked up
in a motel room. The entrepreneurs of the drug trade usually keep a
few steps ahead of the gumshoes.

Traffickers have it pretty easy. The United States has a shoreline of
nearly 90,000 miles, 7,500 miles of border with Mexico and Canada and
300 ports of entry.

A mere 13 truckloads of cocaine can meet today's demand at current
prices. Law enforcement admits that if it could intercept 5 percent of
supply, it would be phenomenal.

A 1997 study by the General Accounting Office concluded that the
governmental efforts both here and abroad "have not materially reduced
the availability of drugs in the United States."

The report should have added, "nor can they."

So much for the logic of interdiction. Meanwhile, the federal
government spends two-thirds of its annual $18 billion anti-drug
budget on interdiction and one-third on treatment. Drug prices keep
falling and quality keeps rising. But results don't matter much in
drug politics. Like most government programs, it's all about "doing
something" and feeling good.

The fundamental truth is that government has lost its drug war. Time
and again drug crusaders urge drastic measures to change a "no-win"
policy. We must redouble our efforts, they say -- translation: the
problem is complex, give us more funding and authority.

The $1.6 billion in new money taken from taxpayers to waste on
Colombia fits the pattern. It doesn't matter that the military down
there has been condemned repeatedly for human rights abuses and uses
anti-drug funding to fight guerillas in a civil war that has cost an
estimated 35,000 lives. The military always wants resource "dominance"
to defeat an enemy with minimal or no casualties. But the war on drugs
cannot be won like a conventional war.

If McCaffrey can repeal the laws of supply and demand, maybe he'll
have a fighting chance. Until then, he might work on a simpler
problem, say, repealing the law of gravity.

Reynolds is the director of the Criminal Justice Center at the
National Center for Policy Analysis and a professor of economics at
Texas A&M University.