OVERKILL ON COLOMBIAN DRUGS WON'T REALLY HELP AMERICANS

Robert Weiner and Dino Manalis are right about one thing ("Fix Colombia's
economy to break drug trade," Dec. 30): Communist guerrilla movements do not
originate in a vacuum. U.S. tax money would be better spent addressing the
socioeconomic causes of civil strife in Colombia rather than applying
overwhelming military force to attack the symptoms. That being said, Plan
Colombia very well could spread both coca production and civil war
throughout South America. We're not doing the Colombian people any favors by
financing civil war. Nor are Americans being protected from drugs.

Destroy the Colombian coca crop, and production would boom in Peru, Bolivia
and Ecuador. Instead of wasting scarce resources waging a futile supply-side
drug war abroad, we should be financing cost-effective drug treatment here.

ROBERT SHARPE,policy analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington