TIME FOR U.S. TO RETHINK DRUG-WAR STRATEGY

After three years and more than $2 billion in U.S. support, Plan Colombia is
a failure. The U.S. strategy is to attack the drug problem at its source.
The plan's centerpiece, an aerial eradication program, is flawed. When we
stop spraying, the plants come back.

The General Accounting Office reports that we will have to spend more than
$1.5 billion in the next decade just to keep the planes in the air. Aerial
eradication has major health and environmental consequences. As these crop
dusters fly over the rugged terrain where coca is grown, they often miss
their target and hit farmers' homes, livestock, food crops and, worst of
all, their drinking water. In Plan Colombia's three years, the price, purity
and availability of cocaine in the United States has remained unchanged.

While the U.S. government has been spending $1.5 million a day in Colombia
on a failed strategy, our state and local governments are facing the worst
budget crisis since World War II. National debt is skyrocketing.

Attacking the drug problem at its source sounds good, but you can't reduce
the supply of a product without reducing demand. It's time to reconsider our
strategy.

Kirk Anderson

Miami Beach