SPRAYING COCA CROP IS A MISPLACED PRIORITY

With 3 million Americans going begging for substance abuse treatment, the
Clinton administration is beset by a case of misplaced priorities in seeking
a staggering $1.6 billion to help Colombia spray its coca (cocaine) crop to
smithereens.

Add in the likelihood that the United States may become more involved in
Colombia's nasty 40-year-old civil war -- 85 percent of the aid would be in
military assistance -- and you've got the makings of another blunder in our
beleaguered anti-drug policy. Our country can't afford that, either in
economic or human terms.

When the U.S. House Appropriations Committee considers the doubly misguided
proposal this week as part of a huge supplemental appropriations bill, it
should give the administration this pointed guidance:

- - Don't angle for more anti-drug money to spend in faraway countries, no
matter how integral they are to this country's dependence on illicit
substances, until treatment has been made available to the millions of
Americans going without.

- - Deploy a wholly different tactic to stop Colombia's cocaine factory, which
stepped up production by 20 percent last year. In the country's southern
plains, home to people battered by conflict between the government and the
guerrillas, distribute economic aid in the form of crop substitution
programs and basic services such as education and infrastructure. Coca isn't
the Colombians' crop of choice to eke out an existence.

Granted, the United States must remain engaged with the world's largest
producer and distributor of cocaine's raw form. The effects of that ranking
on us are all too apparent. Almost 2 million Americans 12 and older used
cocaine in 1998, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
Here in King County, cocaine has recently enjoyed a resurgence, making it
one of the top three drugs of choice.

But two critical components of a right-minded anti-drug strategy have been
consistently underfunded because they have been underemphasized: the
bookends to drug use, prevention and treatment. Just compare the $1.6
billion request for Colombia during an 18-month period with the $2 billion
for all prevention and treatment in the proposed 2001 budget of the U.S.
Centers for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment.

Frankly, it will be much more valuable to America's health over the long
haul to spend money domestically on "just saying no" than on Blackhawk
helicopters that may or may not wind up being used to the end we'd like: the
decimation of Colombia's No. 1 export.