Pubdate: Sat, 12 May 2001 Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK) Copyright: 2001 The Anchorage Daily News Contact: http://www.adn.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18 Author: Lois Gilbert Note: Lois Gilbert is a former University of Alaska Anchorage adjunct history professor and high school teacher who has worked as a counselor in Alaska shelters for abused teens. TREATMENT IS BEST ALLY IN DRUG WAR A Baptist missionary and her baby were the latest casualties of supply-side drug policies. The CIA-run program downs planes suspected of running drugs from Columbia to Peru. No little niceties like jury trials or even trials. Force 'em down or shoot 'em down, all in the name of the war on drugs. One bullet tore through Veronica Bowers' heart and her baby's head. While Jim Bowers fought flames with a fire extinguisher, pilot Kevin Donaldson landed the missionary float plane on the Amazon River despite his bullet-mangled leg. In the name of national sovereignty, Peru wouldn't allow the CIA to shoot planes over its territory. It was a Peruvian who fired despite directions of Americans in the surveillance plane. Defending its Air Force, Peru said no flight plan was filed. Journalists shot down attempts at damage control while waving the filed flight plan. The suspected drug plane had large identifying numbers on its side, not to mention a dove of peace. According to NBC's Andrea Mitchell, the Clinton administration in 1994 thought this program too risky, our level of involvement too high. The Pentagon also was concerned. Our State Department argued for the program. For plausible deniability, Peruvians, not Americans, would call the control tower to identify possible drug runners. This time they didn't. Veronica and Charity Bowers died because their country gave up the control that could have saved them. Years ago, Dad flew us in his little Tri-pacer from Ajo, Ariz. to Guaymas, Mexico, for a family snorkeling vacation. Most American-bound cocaine and heroin comes through Mexico. Flying private planes in a country that is a drug source shouldn't be a capital offense, either for Americans or citizens of another country. Downing planes reduced the area's coca crop, defenders said. But it is demand that fuels our drug problem. Despite billions spent on interdiction, sufficient cocaine and heroin get through that its street price is lower than 30 years ago. Had it risen, desperate addicts would deal enough to fellow addicts or steal enough from the rest of us to feed their habit. We need to seriously consider the damaged caused by our high-control, low-support drug policies. Civil liberties have been trampled at home and abroad. The drug war has helped put up to a third of young black males in the criminal justice system. Let's face it, we would never accept criminalizing that percentage of young white males. We don't have to. Caucasians guilty of the same offenses aren't subjected to racial profiling. Their families are more likely to have the resources for a better defense than a court-appointed attorney, and they often receive better plea bargains and lower penalties from a largely white criminal justice system. Since up to half of adults have used illegal drugs, if we were really industrious, half of us could work to pay the costs of jailing the other half. Already the drug war has given us the world's highest incarceration rate, and court-ordered reductions of overcrowded prisons have put violent offenders back on the streets, making room for new drug offenders. Instead of funding civil liberties violations we would never allow at home, Congress should adequately fund drug treatment. Europeans increasingly treat drugs as a health problem. Americans tend to consider decriminalization "soft on drugs" and reject high-support programs as socialist, but it's America that consumes half the world's cocaine. Bush proposes cuts in child abuse prevention to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. Instead let's fund effective programs so that fewer abused kids self-medicate on drugs or try to escape the abuse through dealing. Let's fund reading classes for poor readers so they can actually understand their textbooks. Drug dealing is an attractive career choice to few other than addicts or the desperately unskilled. Targeting root causes like child abuse and functional illiteracy would fight drugs more effectively than a war on our own citizens. Instead of seeking deniability for our programs and being in denial about demand, we should take responsibility for both. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom