Pubdate: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) Copyright: 2002 PG Publishing Contact: http://www.post-gazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341 Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n107/a05.html THIS APPROACH TO ILLEGAL DRUGS IS DOOMED TO FAILURE The Post-Gazette's Jan. 21 editorial on Colombia ("Colombian Conundrum") concluded with the statement that "the United States should actively support this effort to resolve the conflict, to bring peace and to achieve drug-interdiction -- while keeping out of the civil war." A crackdown on coca cultivation in one region leads to increased cultivation elsewhere. When faced with the choice of abject poverty and the inflated black market profits of illicit crops, many farmers will choose the latter. As for keeping out of the civil war, not only is the U.S. government turning a blind eye to paramilitary human rights violations, but a very real environmental threat is being ignored. In an effort to eradicate coca plants, toxic herbicides are sprayed from above, hitting water supplies, staple crops and people. The aerial fumigation campaign drives peasants deeper into the Amazon basin, which leads to more rainforest destruction. The $1.3 billion Plan Colombia will not negate the immutable laws of supply and demand that drive illegal drug production. Destroy the Colombian coca crop and production will boom in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Destroy every last plant in South America and domestic methamphetamine production will increase to meet the demand for cocaine-like drugs. Sooner or later the self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are going to have to stop wasting the taxpayers' money and wake up to the supply-side drug war's inherent failure. ROBERT SHARPE, Program Officer The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation Washington, D.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager