Pubdate: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 Source: Wichita Eagle (KS) Copyright: 2001 The Wichita Eagle Contact: http://www.wichitaeagle.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/680 Author: Ted Galen Carpenter Note: Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign- policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. PLAN COLOMBIA: LATEST U.S. DRUG WAR FAILURE Special to The Wichita Eagle The centerpiece of the Bush administration's "supply side" campaign against illegal drugs is staunch support for the Colombian government's Plan Colombia. But the facts show that the plan is a waste of time and money. Washington is backing Plan Colombia to the tune of $1.3 billion, primarily in military aid. Green Beret personnel are training several antidrug battalions, U.S. funds have helped the Colombian military buy Black Hawk helicopters and other hardware, and employees under contract to the State Department fly dangerous aerial spraying missions to eradicate drug crops. Plan Colombia's goals are certainly ambitious. Since December, more than 75,000 acres of drug crops have been sprayed with a herbicide. U.S. satellite data suggest that there are about 340,000 acres of coca (the raw material for cocaine) under cultivation throughout the country. Colombian officials express the hope that the eradication campaign will cut that acreage at least 50 percent by 2002. But evidence has recently emerged that Plan Colombia's claims of success are erroneous -- or at least irrelevant. Even as President Andres Pastrana and other leaders boasted of the plan's achievements, reports were leaking out that a new study, funded by the United Nations, indicated that there were more than 340,000 acres under cultivation. Even more to the point, previous U.S. estimates of total cocaine production in Colombia -- 580 tons annually, out of total world production of 780 tons - -- were too low. The new study concluded that Colombia's actual cocaine production was between 800 and 900 tons per year. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration inadvertently provides additional evidence of Plan Colombia's futility. Donnie Marshall, chief of the DEA, recently conceded that street prices of cocaine in the United States have remained virtually the same since Colombia's vigorous crop-eradication measures began. Yet if those efforts were successful, they should have produced a sharp decline in cocaine exports. That development, in turn, should be driving up street prices to reflect increasing scarcity. The fact that not even a modest price spike has occurred clearly indicates that Plan Colombia is having no meaningful impact on the supply of cocaine. The brutal reality is that, as long as drugs are illegal, there will be a huge black-market premium -- a lucrative potential profit that will attract producers. Plan Colombia cannot repeal the economic laws of supply and demand. In attempting to do so, the United States is creating even more trouble for an already troubled neighbor. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens