Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 Source: Bangor Daily News (ME) Copyright: 2001 Bangor Daily News Inc. Contact: http://www.bangornews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/40 Author: William McP. Bigelow HOUSE AFIRE Imagine a house on fire and firefighters throwing gasoline on it in the hope of extinguishing it. The United States does just that in Colombia with its more than $1.3 billion in support for Plan Colombia. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, "political violence has markedly increased since the first installment of the United States' $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package was dispersed in August. There were at least 27 massacres in the month of January alone claiming the lives of as many as 300 civilians. Today, U.S. supplied helicopters using U.S. tax dollars are spraying Round-Up on subsistence crops such as corn and bananas in southern Colombia. Soon there will be widespread hunger in the states of Putumayo and Caqueta. All of this is done in order to destroy coca production. The rationale given to the U.S. public for the more than $1 billion for Plan Colombia is that this is part of the "War on Drugs." And yet, decades of scientific evidence have shown that source-country eradication efforts have no significant effect on drug use in the United States. A recent Rand Corporation study suggests that drug treatment is 23 times more cost effective in fighting drugs than aerial spraying on coca in source countries. This conflict cannot be won militarily. Let us not take 10 years and thousands of deaths to figure this out. William McP. Bigelow Mount Desert - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom