PLAN FOR COLOMBIA HAS NOT WORKED

Bravo to letter writer Noreen Ordronneau!

I submit the urgent question for policy makers should be, "Will criminal
justice and DEA-style solutions reduce the amount of cocaine abuse in the
United States?"

No matter how many hectares of Colombia, Bolivia or Peru the United States
and paid contractors destroy with their aerial-dispersed poisons, not a
single cocaine abuser in the United States is any closer to true recovery.
If equal priority is not given to reducing demand, cocaine importers will
simply continue to score their product from the never-ending flow of coke
smuggled from across South America.

It's time for more sensible alternatives. We need to stop destroying other
countries' agricultural infrastructure in the futile effort to "control"
the multi-billion dollar cocaine industry. Equally urgent, we need more
funding of programs that provide treatment on demand for any drug abuser
who wants it. Such treatment should be available regardless of the drug of
abuse -- whether that drug be cocaine, meth, alcohol, nicotine or opiates.

- -- Stephen Heath, Clearwater, Fla.