THE WAR ON DRUGS IS FUTILE. SURRENDER

Francis Fukuyama's March 28 editorial-page commentary "Colombia Deserves
U.S. Help1," which voiced support for the proposed $1.57 billion military
aid package to Colombia, was misguided. Attempts to limit supply only
increase the profitability of drug trafficking, which in turn increases the
levels of violence and corruption. We're not doing the Colombian people any
favors by adding fuel to the fire.

Nor are we protecting children from drugs. Even if every last plant in
Colombia were killed by the toxic poisons that drug warriors spray,
American youth would continue to get high. As long as there is a demand,
there will be a supply. Cut off the flow of cocaine and domestic
methamphetamine production will boom. Thanks to past successes at
eradicating marijuana in Latin America, the corresponding increase in
domestic cultivation has made marijuana America's number one cash crop.
Kids who cannot buy pot have been known to use a host of deadly yet legal
chemicals to get high. I find it frustrating that the alleged champions of
the free market in Congress cannot understand how basic supply and demand
dynamics make the drug war futile.

No amount of tax dollars spent eradicating plants in Colombia is going to
make the U.S. "drug-free." Nor will funding civil war in Colombia win the
drug war. For the same reasons that alcohol prohibition failed, the drug
war has been doomed from the start.