Pubdate: Fri, 04 May 2001
Source: Messenger-Inquirer (KY)
Copyright: 2001 Messenger-Inquirer
Contact:  http://www.messenger-inquirer.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1285
Author: Bill Moore
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

MONEY BETTER SPENT ON DRUG TREATMENT THAN INTERDICTION

lf one medicine were 23 times more effective than another, which would
you take? In 1994 the Rand Corp., a conservative think tank, made a
study finding treatment of cocaine addiction 23 times more effective at
reducing usage than attacking the source. Though financed by the U.S.
government, the results have been ignored with billions spent trying to
cut off the source. Only two million of nearly five million hard-core
addicts receive treatment.

Last year Congress approved $1.3 billion in aid for Plan Colombia,
supposedly to cut cocaine production. Most of this aid is military. It
was conditioned on Colombia observing human rights standards. President
Clinton horrified human rights groups by waiving the standards. Plan
Colombia has become a poorly disguised war against the poor.

Forty percent of Colombia's people are Afro-Colombian, who are mostly
the poor. A 50-year rebellion is being ruthlessly subdued by the
Colombian military in the name of a war on drugs.

Latin American leaders are increasingly angry at the U.S. for "drug
wars" on their territory while we do so little to reduce the market
here.

The Rand study shows it costs $783 million attacking the source to
achieve the same results achieved by $34 million in treating addicts.

The $1.3 billion aid is involving us in a civil war in Colombia with
many potentials of a Vietnam.

The shooting down of a missionary plane in Peru with U.S. involvement is
another indictment of the U.S. drug interdiction policy.

Bill Moore,
Owensboro
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