CLAIMS OF SUCCESS IN DRUG WAR NOT PROVEN IN SOCIETY

Presidents Bush and Uribe agree to more war in Colombia on Nov. 23. U.S.
assistance to Colombia totaled about $3.9 billion from 2000 to 2005. And
$3.14 billion of it - 80 percent - has gone to Colombia's military, police,
and a drug crop-eradication program based on aerial herbicide fumigation.
Bush wants to reauthorize Colombian aid for another five years; this is a
massive amount of money and deserves extensive debate.

Bush and Uribe both claim that Plan Colombia has successfully reduced drug
cultivation - but the point of Plan Colombia was to make drugs less
available in the United States.

Neither the U.S. Drug Enforcement's 2003 report nor the U.S. drug czar's
January report noted any increase in the price of a gram of cocaine on U.S.
streets - in fact, the price of a gram of cocaine has gone virtually
unchanged since 1995. The DEA report also found that availability and
purity of cocaine in the U.S. remained stable.

Why are we continuing to support a policy that doesn't work? The results of
spraying the countryside with toxic chemicals and arming the young peasants
has only created less food and more death. Recently, Congress increased the
number of U.S. military advisors as well as private contractors.

Sound familiar?

David G. Williams,

Asheville