WE'RE WASTING MONEY ON THE WAR ON DRUGS

I have served on the front lines of the war on drugs in Latin America.
I am reporting back that it is a failure.

Last year I received a Navy achievement medal for my military service
in the drug war. Last month I returned this medal to President Clinton
to protest his proposed $1.7 billion special appropriation for Colombia.

Under the guise of fighting drugs, this aid package will dramatically
escalate U.S. military involvement in Colombia's civil war. Colombians
are exhausted and dispirited after 40 years of civil strife. In recent
months Colombians by the millions have taken to the streets in huge
national marches calling for peace.

Representatives of the insurgents and government negotiators have just
returned from a watershed 25-day tour of Western Europe, where they
explored peace. Increased U.S. military aid to Colombia will derail
this peace process. More than 80 percent of the funds destined for
Colombia will be spent on helicopters and other military aid. These
are the wrong tools to fight a problem that is fundamentally political
and economic.

Moreover, the Colombian military is profoundly ineffective and tied to
right-wing paramilitary forces that are human-rights abusers and drug
traffickers. The U.S. aid package is a recipe for more lawlessness and
military failure on the battlefield.

Our drug war leaders say their goal is a "drug-free America." But
three decades of the drug war have shown that goal to be unrealistic,
so our strategy must be replaced. Pursuing an unrealistic goal has
resulted in insufficient funding for effective programs, such as
making treatment available on request and providing after-school
programs for our children.

At the same time, we waste tax dollars on ineffective, expensive, and
dangerous programs such as the massive imprisonment of drug users and
the exorbitant military-aid package to Colombia. As a result, today we
have more prisoners per capita than any other country, and Colombia
receives the most U.S. military aid in this hemisphere.

The best way to help Colombia and to help the United States is to
reduce the demand for illicit drugs here at home. This conclusion is
reinforced by my work as a Spanish teacher in Roxbury, Mass., -- a
low-income, drug-riddled section of Boston -- where I have seen drug
abuse among our kids and witnessed the deleterious effects of our
domestic drug war.

As an alternative to the drug war, I propose a "Plan USA" to provide
treatment, on request, for our hard-core drug-addict population that
now exceeds 5 million people. The Rand Corp. has found that treatment
is 10 times more cost-effective than interdiction in reducing the use
of cocaine. Plan USA would also discourage drug use by adolescents by
providing adequate funding of after-school programs and mentor programs.

In addition, Plan USA would move to treat and reintegrate the more
than 100,000 prisoners imprisoned on non-violent drug charges.

With the proper programs, these people should be able to return to
their families and communities, where they could work and pay taxes.

We need to set realistic goals -- fewer deaths from drugs, less
adolescent drug use, less disease, and less crime from drug abuse. We
can implement a strategy of control. We can achieve a safer and
healthier America that is no longer at war with itself. These are not
utopian platitudes, but achievable goals.

Other countries, especially in Europe, are more successfully
controlling drug abuse through public-health approaches. We should
follow their lead. It is time to admit failure and end the war on drugs.

As a first step, Congress should say no to more aid for the Colombian
military. Instead, we should take that $1.7 billion and invest it to
support the peace plan in Colombia and to provide treatment and
prevention programs here at home.

Weapons and war are not the answer. Americans and Colombians both need
peace for their families and communities.