FAILING DRUG WAR

White House "drug czar" John Walters recently lapsed into a moment of
candor about Plan Colombia, the five-year, $3.3 billion expenditure of
U.S. taxpayers' money that was supposed to - finally - reduce cocaine
manufacturing in Colombia and availability in the United States.

As Associated Press reporter Dan Molinski wrote, "After flying over
blackened coca fields, White House drug czar John Walters conceded
that seizing cocaine, destroying coca fields and locking up drug
traffickers in Colombia have had little impact on the flow of cocaine
on American streets. But ... Walters nevertheless insisted that
Washington must stay the course with so-called Plan Colombia ..."

Walters later caught himself and in Mexico City predicted that we
would see results, in the form of declining availability of cocaine on
American streets, in another year or so. Sure.

When it comes to the drug war, few in the U.S. media bother to
question officials who in the face of failure urge us to redouble our
efforts - a tendency that in common sense might be equated with an
irrational zealotry or worse.

U.S. officials have been promising that victory in the war on drugs is
just around the corner since the 1970s.

As the Cato Institute's Ted Galen Carpenter documents at length in his
recent book, "Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in
Latin America," each new initiative is launched with optimistic fanfare.

Early examples of success - coca fields burned, drug barons arrested -
are touted to show that the strategy is working.

Then reality intrudes and the campaign is forgotten - only to be
resurrected in a year or so with a new name.

The Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia and initially touted
reductions in coca acreage in Colombia - without mentioning increases
in Peru and Bolivia. Now even Walters admits that at the bottom line -
supplies in the illicit U.S. market - the campaign is a failure.

What's the likelihood that doing more of the same will produce
different results than it has in the last three decades?

It's time to dump Plan Colombia and rethink the entire drug war.