DRUG WARRIORS FACE DANGER

With the nation focused on a possible war in Iraq, people have a tendency
to forget that American armed forces are serving in hostile areas closer to
home. Two recent developments have highlighted the dangers faced by our
troops fighting the drug war.

The first was the Pentagon announcement in early January that U.S. Green
Beret forces would be involved in guarding the Cano Limon oil pipeline in
Arauca state in Colombia. The pipeline has been a popular target of rebel
forces seeking to overthrow the government. The U.S. government justifies
this use of our troops in Colombia's long-running civil war by calling it
anti-terrorist training for Colombia's army.

U.S. troops and equipment have been in Colombia for years as part of a
joint war on drugs. In the past there were clear rules stating that U.S.
troops would not and could not be used to fight Colombia's civil war. We
worried then that the lines between the two wars would begin to blur as
leftist rebels hired themselves out to Colombian drug traffickers to
provide security. Would a government skirmish with such rebels be a battle
in the civil war or the drug war? No one seemed to know.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, however, it hasn't mattered much because the two
governments quickly labeled the rebels "terrorists." This allows U.S.
troops to become more involved in the civil war, an area in which we don't
really have a national interest. The possibility is there for U.S. troops
to be drawn deeper into Colombia's civil war, under the guise of fighting
terrorism.

The goals of the rebels haven't changed and they are not the "international
terrorists" President Bush has vowed to fight. They are local rebels who
have no aspirations to take on the United States except when Americans have
crossed paths with them in Colombia. That's not exactly terrorism on an
international scale.

The other incident involved two Marine helicopters that collided last month
during a nighttime operation to interdict drugs coming over the Mexican
border. The crash killed the four crew members of the Super Cobra
helicopters and helps point out the futility of the drug war.

Although the time, effort and money spent battling drug traffickers could
be better spent by government (or better yet, returned to taxpayers),
that's not why it's time to take a fresh look at the wisdom of this war.

In a free society it's not the place of the government to regulate what
adults put into their bodies. Our nation learned that lesson early in the
20th century with the failed experiment of Prohibition, or so we thought.

Prohibition of alcohol didn't work and neither has prohibition of certain
drugs. It does create a black market for them and drives up the price. This
leads to other crimes as users rob and steal to support their habits.

Would legalization of drugs make all problems go away? No. After all,
alcohol is legal for adults to use and there are a host of social problems
associated with its abuse. But social problems should be handled by
churches, charities and nonprofits set up for that purpose, not the government.