Pubdate: Wed, 30 Aug 2000
Source: Daily Herald (IL)
Copyright: 2000 The Daily Herald Company
Contact:  http://www.dailyherald.com/

COLOMBIA STILL COCAINE KING

Cocaine still flows freely from the jungles of Colombia to the streets of the cities and suburbs. Despite the fact that billions of dollars have been spent over the years on drug interdiction efforts in Colombia, 90 percent of the cocaine on the U.S. illegal drug market comes from this South American nation.

And make no mistake, this cocaine makes its way here. Earlier this year, 30 grams of cocaine were seized in a drug bust in Carpentersville that netted the arrest of 14 people. In recent months, dealers or alleged cocaine dealers also have been arrested in McHenry County, Elgin, Naperville, Villa Park, Vernon Hills, Streamwood and elsewhere throughout the suburbs.

Cocaine is not as troublesome as it used to be. But it hasn't gone away. The distribution of the drug from Colombia obviously cannot be checked.

So now President Clinton wants to spend another $1.7 billion on Colombian drug interdiction. The money would be spent to help the Colombian military launch an all-out attack on drug dealers and the Marxist guerrillas who protect them. U.S. military advisers already are there, instructing the army on how best to wage this drug-driven civil war.

Colombia would get more than $1.7 billion. The U.S. also would weaken, if not waive, requirements that the Colombian government improve its human rights violations record as a condition for receiving such aid. This has understandably angered international humanitarian groups.

But maybe this is the way it has to be. Nothing else has worked. Or has it?

U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad of New Mexico and others in Congress opposed to this new escalation of the drug war point out that $150 billion has been spent on drug interdiction. Money wasted, at least in Colombia.

Ramstad says there is a better way to spend the $1.7 billion - on treatment. For example, on drug courts, where sanctions, combined with treatment, are getting people off cocaine. But Ramstad points out that only 18 percent of anti-drug money is spent on treatment. President Nixon directed 60 percent of the money for his war on drugs to treatment.

No doubt, the Colombian cocaine distribution network has to be dismantled. But while our military is getting even more involved in drug interdiction in the Colombian jungles, we could be doing more here to hurt those dealers. That is, hurt their magnificent U.S. cocaine market by getting more people off drugs for good.
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