THIS IS OUR PROBLEM TOO

No supply chain is quite as lethal and destructive as that of cocaine.
That was the message from the Colombian Vice-President, Francisco
Santos Calderon, at a meeting of the Association of Chief Police
Officers in Belfast yesterday.

Mr Calderon informed his audience that drug production is causing
environmental disaster in Colombia, with illegal cultivators
destroying 200,000 hectares of forest each year to produce the coca
plant. But his purpose was not merely to draw our attention to this
crime, but to ram home our own complicity in it. "If you snort a gram
of cocaine," he said, "you are destroying four square metres of
pristine rainforest."

Mr Calderon is right to point to the hypocrisy of those who claim to
be environmentally conscious, yet see nothing wrong in indulging in a
few lines of "blow" at the weekend. He is also justified in
emphasising that anyone who takes cocaine is indirectly helping to
fund brutal drug trafficking groups and human rights-abusing rebel
militias which have a stake in the trade, such as the Farc in Colombia.

This is one area in which there has actually been some good news of
late. Farc has been under intense pressure from the Colombian
government, led by President Alvaro Uribe. In the past year, the ranks
of its leadership have been depleted by illness and capture. Thousands
of its soldiers have deserted, and in July the Colombian military
rescued Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate, who had
been Farc's most high-profile hostage. The sense that the tide is
moving against the group is rising.

But we need to recognise there is only so much that can be done at the
supply end of the drugs trade. Poor countries will always struggle to
control traffickers. And even if Colombia succeeds, the cultivation of
narcotics will most likely spread to other, less stable, parts of the
world, perhaps Africa. It is no coincidence that chaotic Afghanistan
is now the world's largest exporter of heroin.

It is up to us in the rich world to take a lead by staunching the
demand for drugs through rehabilitation programmes and other radical
measures. Mr Calderon's point is well made. The drugs trade is not
just a responsibility for exporter countries. It is a matter for all
of us.