DRUG WAR COMES AT HIGH PRICE

On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on a $1.7 billion
emergency-aid package to escalate the war on drugs in Colombia. Initiated
by the White House and enthusiastically backed by the House Republican
leadership, it is a product of the drug war's perverse priorities and
another example of the disturbing link between campaign cash and public
policy.

Let's start with the cash being spread around Washington to help grease the
wheels for the aid bonanza. The Colombian government hired Vernon Jordan's
law firm--Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld (which he has since left)--to
stump for it. Indeed, when the House Appropriations Committee met last week
to consider the proposal, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) noticed that an
Akin, Gump lobbyist was in attendance. He must have gone away happy because
the committee not only approved the president's $1.2 billion request but
also added another $500 million to the pot.

The Colombians have other powerful allies. Most persistent has been a
collection of multinational corporations with operations in
Colombia--including Occidental Petroleum, BP Amoco and Enron - that has
been lobbying both Congress and the administration for a big-buck package
that would serve their business interests there.

More than $400 million of the aid will be spent on the purchase of 63
helicopters manufactured by two U.S. firms - Sikorsky Aircraft, a
subsidiary of United Technologies, and Bell Helicopter Textron - that also
have been playing the Capitol Hill money game. In the last two election
cycles, Textron and its employees donated close to $1 million to both
Republicans and Democrats, and United Technologies gave more than $700,000.

Underscoring the incestuous relationship between commerce and drug policy,
Tom Umberg, the architect of the administration's Colombia initiative, is
moving from the White House Office of Drug Control Policy to the law firm
of Morrison & Foerster, where he will represent Colombia and other Latin
American countries on trade issues.

Colombia is in the midst of a protracted three-way civil war, pitting the
Colombian army, which has one of the worst human-rights records in the
Western Hemisphere, against leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary
groups, both largely funded by the drug trade. It is the army that will
receive the lion's share of the U.S. money--prompting senior defense
officials to express privately their fear that our military's expanding
role in fighting the war on drugs could draw the United States into another
Vietnam.

Maybe that's why the Clinton administration decided to introduce the
Colombia aid as part of a larger emergency-spending package - bundling the
potentially controversial measure with proposals only a cold-hearted
misanthrope would oppose. Along with the money for Colombia, the bill
includes $2.2 billion for relief from natural disasters such as Hurricane
Floyd and $854 million for military health care. It's an old legislative
ploy designed to squelch debate and force politicians to vote for wasteful
- - or even terrible - measures.

Jackson is one of the members who will nevertheless vote against the bill.
"It's absurd," he told me. "There wasn't even any language added tying the
aid to human rights concerns. And [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi's [D-Calif.]
amendment to spend equivalent amounts of money on the demand side was
defeated during the Appropriations Committee mark-up--even though treatment
has been proven to be 23 times more cost-effective than eradication of
crops and 11 times more cost-effective than interdiction."

The cost of the helicopters alone would provide treatment for almost
200,000 substance users or drug-prevention services for more than 4 million
Americans. We're about to spend close to $2 billion on Colombia, while here
at home we have 3.6 million addicts not receiving the treatment they need.
This despite the fact that drug czar Barry McCaffrey's budget is expected
to rise to a proposed $19.2 billion next year.

When Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1971, he directed more than
60 percent of the funds into treatment. Now, we're down to 18 percent.
Since 1980, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, the
emphasis has turned to interdiction, crop eradication, border surveillance
and punishment. The evidence is clear that it's been a misguided use of
resources. But putting $1.7 billion into Colombia, in the middle of a civil
war, is more than misguided - it's nuts.