Pubdate: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 Source: News-Sentinel (IN) Copyright: 2000 The News-Sentinel Contact: 600 West Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Website: http://www.news-sentinel.com/ns/index.shtml Author: Leo Morris, for the editorial board WHERE ARE RESULTS IN WAR ON DRUGS? How Much More Will Be Spent On A Policy That Is Clearly Not Working? President Clinton has just told Colombia the United States will commit $1.3 billion to help that nation "combat cocaine trafficking," adding that amount to the billions already thrown down the rathole otherwise known as the "war against drugs." The truth is that what we have here is either another Prohibition or -- if you prefer a more recent analogy -- the law-enforcement equivalent of Vietnam. But nobody seems to want to deal with the truth. Those of us on the conservative side always lambaste liberals for continuing to waste money on failed programs like welfare, for foolishly believing that if billions of dollars didn't get the job done, a few billion more will. Even if it's a goal we support -- to reduce the damage done by drugs -- shouldn't we be asking for the same kind of "show us the results" evidence we demand of other government initiatives? We didn't during Prohibition, which tried to attack the supply of alcohol just as we're trying to eradicate the supply of drugs today. The result was an explosion of criminality and the creation of a whole new criminal empire. There has been nothing to equal it since -- well, until the creation of the new drug-criminal empire. And we didn't during Vietnam, when billions of dollars were squandered and countless lives lost -- including more than 50,000 American ones -- in a war, it is now clear, the politicians did not really have the will to win. They were just going through the motions. Colombian President Andres Pastrana -- perhaps unwisely -- spoke the truth when he said of the drug war, "Colombia can put a stop to drugs here at some point. But if the demand continues, somebody else somewhere else in the world is going to produce them. What we are talking about is the most lucrative business in the world." Columnist William F. Buckley once wrote that we could stop the drug problem in a heartbeat if we really wanted to. Just start public executions -- quickly, with little or no appeal -- for every person caught with any amount of drug. The problem will disappear in a matter of weeks. But, he asked, is that something a civilized country would or should tolerate? Obviously not. But until we do something to attack the demand side -- whether it is through criminal penalties or education and rehabilitation or some combination -- we are just fooling around no less than we were in Vietnam. It is seldom the supply of something that is a problem. It's that so many desire it in the first place. With our $1.3 billion, we will be funneling aid to a country in a three-way civil war, one in which there are credible reports of obscene human rights violations -- including the wanton murder of children by paramilitary units. We will, in effect, be subsidizing such atrocities. This country has decided to suspend its monitoring of those violations as a condition of giving Colombia money. We can't handle our addictions, so we inflict atrocities on innocent children. Is that what we are prepared to tolerate in our war on drugs? - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart