Another One Bites the Dust

"PLAN COLOMBIA" IS THE LATEST FAILED DRUG-WAR POLICY

John Walters, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
recently startled the media by admitting that the $3.3 billion Plan
Colombia, now in its fourth year, has failed to make a significant
dent in the amount of cocaine flowing out of that country. Walters
added hastily, however, that he expected to see substantial progress
in the next year or so.

His comments are the latest in a familiar and dreary pattern. Each new
initiative in Washington's international campaign to stem the supply
of illegal drugs is launched with great fanfare. During the early
phases, isolated examples of success are touted as evidence that the
overall strategy is working. Ultimately, though, reality intrudes, and
it becomes clear that the drug supply is as plentiful as ever. Thrown
on the defensive, drug warriors admit that the task has proven more
difficult than anticipated, but argue that, if we stay the course,
success is just around the corner. When such predictions prove faulty
often enough, the existing initiative is quietly buried and a new one
is launched with the appropriate fanfare.

That is what has occurred with Plan Colombia. The Clinton
administration initiated the program in 2000, and within months U.S.
officials boasted about the amount of coca plants (the raw ingredient
for cocaine) that the aerial-spraying program was eradicating. Similar
claims of success continued until recently. The State Department's
most recent annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
contended that the amount of coca cultivation in Colombia fell from
420,000 acres in 2001 to 280,000 acres in 2003.

That statistic was superficially impressive, but it ignored two
important factors. First, although the acreage devoted to coca
cultivation may have declined in Colombia, the acreage in Peru and
Bolivia (the other two major players) had risen sharply. That reversed
the trend of the mid and late 1990s, when U.S.-funded anti-drug
measures led to a crackdown that reduced cultivation in Peru and
Bolivia -- only to see it explode in Colombia, and spread to new
locales such as Ecuador and Brazil.

Second, even if the acreage devoted to coca in the entire Andean
region has declined slightly in recent years, drug traffickers have
become more efficient. In other words, they are able to produce the
same amount of cocaine from a smaller number of cultivated plants. The
bottom line is that the supply of cocaine flowing into the United
States (and other markets) remains plentiful, as even the nation's
drug czar now admits.

Indeed, the situation in Colombia may be even worse than Walters's
remarks suggest. Washington has placed great confidence in the
willingness of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to wage a vigorous war
on drugs. But a 1991 assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency
concluded that Uribe was in league with drug-trafficking
organizations. Indeed, the DIA concluded that Uribe himself was one of
the top 100 drug traffickers.

Uribe has denied those allegations, and the U.S. State Department
criticized the DIA's assessment and expressed continued confidence in
him. Nevertheless, given how thoroughly drug-trafficking cartels have
penetrated Colombia's political establishment over the years, the
episode creates more than a little doubt.

The Colombian police and military are certainly notorious for
drug-related corruption. Just last month, the police commander of one
of the major drug-producing provinces and his deputy were sacked after
an 80-lb. cocaine seizure mysteriously disappeared. That was the
latest in a series of scandals that included the resignation of the
head of the National Police when it became apparent that members of
his force took more than $1 million in bribes to return some two tons
of cocaine they had seized from traffickers.

Plan Colombia has not succeeded any better than earlier anti-drug
initiatives. And contrary to the drug czar's tenacious optimism, that
pattern is not likely to improve in the next year -- or the next ten
years. One wonders how many times U.S. officials have to travel down
the road of failed prohibitionism before they realize that it always
leads to a dead end. Given the huge profit margin that exists because
drugs are illegal, supply-side campaigns are doomed to fail. It is
time that Walters and other policymakers recognize that reality.