Pubdate: Tue, 29 May 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: Letters
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Keith Sanders

OUR DEMAND FOR DRUGS

To the Editor:

"Officials Long Debated Risks of Anti-Drug Patrol in Peru" (front page, May 
22) calls the entire notion of source-country interdiction into serious 
question. According to the government's own statistics, the entire yearly 
demand for heroin in the United States can be met by less than 25 square 
miles of opium-poppy fields; 250 square miles, about one-fifth the size of 
Rhode Island, is enough to meet our yearly cocaine demand.

With drug crops spread throughout the overgrown jungles of entire 
continents, interdiction will never make a serious dent in the drug trade. 
So why are we wasting billions of our tax dollars, risking American lives 
and supporting brutal dictatorships with this utterly
useless policy?

KEITH SANDERS
Oakland, Calif.
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