MONEY-SUCKING PORKFEST

Re: "Drug cash keeps poor farmers afloat," Nov. 19.

For years and years, The Dallas Morning News has been reporting on the
latest plan to reduce South American acreage under cultivation for coca and
opium. Nobody seems to notice that the same figure of 600,000 to 650,000
acres keeps showing up in news stories every year, distributed in varying
proportions among Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. Demand is inelastic; if they
grew more, the price would crater.

The total land area required to satisfy America's lust for drugs peaks out
at 1,000 square miles, roughly equivalent to Ben Cartwright's mythical
Ponderosa Ranch or Dallas County. South America has 2.5 million square
miles suitable for growing coca and poppies, 2,500 times what's needed.

The next time you fantasize about stopping drug production by pretending to
buy off a few thousand impoverished farmers, don't forget about the other
99 million impoverished South American farmers sitting on fine
drug-producing land.

Instead of buying more thimbles to bail out the ocean, it's time to
recognize the drug war as a depraved agricultural price-support program. It
is a money-sucking porkfest that makes its quotas persecuting minorities
while hacking away everybody's freedom.

Bob Ramsey, Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Irving