THIS APPROACH TO ILLEGAL DRUGS IS DOOMED TO FAILURE

The Post-Gazette's Jan. 21 editorial on Colombia ("Colombian Conundrum")
concluded with the statement that "the United States should actively
support this effort to resolve the conflict, to bring peace and to achieve
drug-interdiction -- while keeping out of the civil war." A crackdown on
coca cultivation in one region leads to increased cultivation elsewhere.
When faced with the choice of abject poverty and the inflated black market
profits of illicit crops, many farmers will choose the latter.

As for keeping out of the civil war, not only is the U.S. government
turning a blind eye to paramilitary human rights violations, but a very
real environmental threat is being ignored. In an effort to eradicate coca
plants, toxic herbicides are sprayed from above, hitting water supplies,
staple crops and people. The aerial fumigation campaign drives peasants
deeper into the Amazon basin, which leads to more rainforest destruction.

The $1.3 billion Plan Colombia will not negate the immutable laws of supply
and demand that drive illegal drug production. Destroy the Colombian coca
crop and production will boom in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Destroy every
last plant in South America and domestic methamphetamine production will
increase to meet the demand for cocaine-like drugs. Sooner or later the
self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are going to have
to stop wasting the taxpayers' money and wake up to the supply-side drug
war's inherent failure.

ROBERT SHARPE, Program Officer

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation

Washington, D.C.