Pubdate: Tue, 11 Apr 2000
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  200 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10281
Website: http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Robert Sharpe, Students for Sensible Drug Policy George Washington 
University
Note: This is the first of two LTE's from this article.  The title is 
believed supplied by the Newshawk.

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS FUTILE. SURRENDER

Francis Fukuyama's March 28 editorial-page commentary "Colombia Deserves 
U.S. Help1," which voiced support for the proposed $1.57 billion military 
aid package to Colombia, was misguided. Attempts to limit supply only 
increase the profitability of drug trafficking, which in turn increases the 
levels of violence and corruption. We're not doing the Colombian people any 
favors by adding fuel to the fire.

Nor are we protecting children from drugs. Even if every last plant in 
Colombia were killed by the toxic poisons that drug warriors spray, 
American youth would continue to get high. As long as there is a demand, 
there will be a supply. Cut off the flow of 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 number one cash crop. 
Kids who cannot buy pot have been known to use a host of deadly yet legal 
chemicals to get high. I find it frustrating that the alleged champions of 
the free market in Congress cannot understand how basic supply and demand 
dynamics make the drug war futile.

No amount of tax dollars spent eradicating plants in Colombia is going to 
make the U.S. "drug-free." Nor will funding civil war in Colombia win the 
drug war. For the same reasons that alcohol prohibition failed, the drug 
war has been doomed from the start.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart