PESTICIDES ARE NOT THE SOLUTION

The government is currently spending more than $1 billion a month vainly
trying to stem the flow of illegal drugs. Unfortunately, that's only one
fifth what the drug-consuming public spends to get their rocks on, according
to Lou Dobbs ("War on drugs is still a war worth fighting," Aug. 23). Since
the 1980s, enormous strides have been made in educating America's youth and
informing the public of the dangers of even casual usage of many dangerous
drugs. According to a University of Michigan study, the percentage of
seniors in high school who admit to using an illegal substance in the last
month has dropped 15 points since 1978.

Clearly, curbing domestic consumption is an enormously important element in
fighting drugs and many successful domestic programs deserve every penny
they receive.

Efforts at curbing foreign production have been far more contentious.
Specifically, Colombian aid has been a sore point for many years. But
despite often bitter opposition to pouring money into a troubled, and
too-often venal, government, recent tactics have dramatically altered the
coca-growing landscape.

In September, the United Nations released conclusions drawn from a month of
satellite imaging of Colombia. In a surprising turnaround for drug
eradication efforts that have often met with mediocre success, the study
reported destruction of fully a third of the crop grown on Colombian soil.

"If the decrease continues at this pace, Colombia's cultivation of coca will
fall by more than 50 percent in 2003," Klaus Nyholm, head of the U.N. Office
on Drugs and Crime in Colombia, told Reuters ("U.N. Reports Big Drop in
Colombian Drug Harvest," Sept. 17).

Such striking results may be the exception rather than the rule, but the
impact on the crop bodes well for the future. One of the more controversial
aspects of our overseas efforts has been how crop substitution versus crop
eradication. Previous Colombian president Andres Pastrana took a
non-confrontational approach to coca farmers.

During his term, farmers were ineffectually encouraged to join non-binding
crop substitution programs. The thinking went that coca growers would find a
way somehow, so it's better not to merely destroy their crop. Instead, the
government should take a carrot and stick approach, subsidizing the
replacement of the coca with other cash crops.

Carrots only get you so far, though, when there isn't any stick.

Current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe came to office pledging a hard-line
approach and apparently delivered. Stepping up the use of crop dusters
spraying toxins, a renewed assault on the growers went ahead amid much
debate, to the growers' dismay.

Spraying pesticides on coca plants millions of miles from home can only do
so much in the war on drugs. Nor has Colombia become a success story in
defeating the drug culture. Even as the coca crop declines, a small, but
burgeoning opium crop threaten to complement Afghan growers and undermine
efforts to reduce heroin usage.

Moreover, drug lords can turn to other countries less committed to wiping
out coca for their supplies. The same U.N. study heralding Colombian
declines also speculated, though with less certainty, that images indicated
increased growing in Peru and Bolivia, perhaps as much as half of what was
destroyed at Uribe's hand.

While Colombia produces more than half of all cocaine in the world, it would
be all too easy for supplies to spring up in neighboring nations. Peru, the
second largest producer, has 111,000 acres under cultivation, and pipelines
could easily be enlarged to accommodate such a shift.

However, short of legalizing drugs, a proposition fraught with far greater
peril than re-legalization of alcohol ever did, striking foreign producers
is an aspect of the drug that shouldn't be overlooked, especially at a time
when our tactics our beginning to show success.

The primary root of the illegal drug trade is undoubtedly at home. And no
doubt some of the $2 billion spent in Colombia since 2000 has been misused.
Yet to abandon the fight abroad is to concede defeat.

The United States needs to increase funding to efforts abroad, especially in
South America, and not just Colombia. With illegal drug use costing the U.S.
economy over $280 billion a year, we can afford to invest much more at the
heart of drug production. Weening farmers from coca cultivation through
subsidies for alternative crops can and should be increased, but not without
a similar ramp-up in pesticide usage.

The roots of drug abuse are spread throughout all strata of American
society, but it would be foolhardy to do nothing to trim the branches, while
we fight to chop down the tree.