Pubdate: Mon, 07 Oct 2002
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2002, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Anthony Lorenzo, Tampa
Note: The writer is a member of the Florida Cannabis Action Network.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1861/a01.html

DRUG WAR ECONOMICS

Regarding "9 Colombians Convicted Of Drug Smuggling" (Metro, Oct. 2):

I would like to point out some dollar amounts for the public regarding this 
case. Nine prisoners, incarcerated for 20 years each at a cost of $25,000 
per year per inmate. Do federal agents expect praise or gratitude for 
spending $4.5 million on some low-level smugglers who were probably being 
paid peanuts to smuggle the decoy shipment in?

I would like to give the U.S. attorney some economics lessons. First, if 
you get $15,000 for something you pay less than a thousand for, you can 
afford to lose 14 out of 15 shipments to break even. How can we win with 
economics like that stacked against us?

Steve Cole states he hopes word gets back to Colombia that the United 
States is not playing around and is sentencing people to huge amounts of 
time. Does he think the cartels will include this in their training manuals 
when they recruit poor people from the shanty towns? The shanty towns are 
the refugee cities that have sprung up as a result of Plan Colombia. 
Farmers and their crops have been poisoned from the aerial spraying that is 
going on in Colombia on our dollar.

When will the "compassionate conservatives" conserve the right things? 
Start conserving military budgets. Start conserving drug war costs. 
Conserve money from foreign covert operations like Plan Colombia. Conserve 
money from terrorist training schools right here in our country like the 
School of the Americas.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager