FUTILE DRUG WAR FUELS KILLINGS IN COLOMBIA

About the Aug. 16 editorial "Columbia creeps up": The various armed
factions waging civil war in Colombia are financially dependent on the U.S.
drug war. Forcibly limiting supply while demand for drugs remains strong
only increases the profitability of drug trafficking. Even if every last
plant in Colombia were destroyed by the toxic herbicides drug warriors
spray, Americans would continue to get high.

Cut off the cocaine, and domestic methamphetamine production will boom.
Thanks to past successes at eradicating marijuana in Latin America, the
corresponding increase in domestic cultivation has made marijuana America's
No. 1 cash crop. Eradicating plants abroad and building prisons at home is
not going to make America "drug-free."

Instead of wasting scarce resources waging a punitive drug war, we should
be financing cost-effective drug treatment. Prison cells are hardly ideal
health interventions. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.

ROBERT SHARPE

Program Officer, Drug Policy Alliance

Washington

Editor's note: The Drug Policy Alliance, formerly known as the Lindesmith
Center/Drug Policy Foundation, promotes "alternatives to the war on drugs."