HELP COLOMBIA, HELP ADDICTS

Most drug-related crime in the United States is committed by addicts whose
heroin and cocaine comes mainly from Colombia.

That long chain - from poor farmers growing coca in the Amazon basin to US
prisons filled with drug offenders - has yet to be broken.

Some critics say it never can be - so why try?

But to its credit, the US has leveled off consumption of hard drugs. And it
has successfully closed down much of the drug traffic in Bolivia and Peru.

Unfortunately, the drug lords have only moved much of their production to
Colombia, turning that large South American country into the world capital
of kidnappings and massacres. Drug money fuels violence by some 30,000
members of left- and right-wing armed groups.

In the last few years, however, Colombians themselves have become serious
about ending the drug trade as they've seen their economy shrink. It's not
just a "gringo problem" anymore.

Now's a perfect time to help both Colombia's 40 million people and the US
in its multiprong war on drugs at home and abroad.

The country's reform-minded president, Andres Pastrana, was in Washington
this week, asking Congress to provide $1.6 billion for his plan to cut drug
trafficking in half in five years. The European Union, where drug imports
from Colombia are rising, is also being asked to contribute.

The House has already approved the money, but passage in the Senate remains
uncertain because of unrelated issues. It ought not to.

On paper, the Pastrana plan holds promise. It attacks the drug problem on
many levels: economic, social, and military. He's also trying to negotiate
peace with the leading leftist rebel group.

For the US, the most sensitive piece of the plan is the use of several
hundred American military advisers in training the Colombian military to
confront drug traffickers, mainly with US-supplied helicopters. Unlike in
Vietnam, the advisers will be kept away from the frontline. And the US must
be sure its money, or advisers, doesn't support paramilitary groups accused
of human rights abuses.

But such risks are small, compared with the benefits of helping end the
drug flow to the US.