Its the Kd Stupid! Practical Observation Concerning U.S. Drug Policy and Plan Columbia

Recently the fifth goal (Goal 5: Break foreign and domestic drug sources of supply) of the United States drug policy, as delineated in the Strategic Goals and Objectives of the 2000 National Drug Control Strategy resulted in $1.3 billion of military and non-military anti-drug aid being directed toward Colombia. Possible outcomes of this direct aid to Colombia will be a greater involvement in Colombia's internal revolutions and little improvement in the domestic US drug problem. The operative idea for Plan Colombia is that US military and non-military aid will allow the Colombian authorities to defoliate thousands of acres of land now under cultivation to produce cocaine and heroin. The idea is to make cocaine and heroin more expensive in the United States, with the hope that children and young adults who might otherwise try these drugs will be priced out of the market and will not start using them. The payoff is hoped to be fewer new cocaine and heroin addicts and possibly a reduction in crime associated with the trade of these two drugs. The Colombians benefit because reduced income for the various revolutionary groups and drug cartels will commensurately reduce the ability of these groups to oppose the government. It is clear, however, that there is a molecular basis for addiction, and that demand reduction in the US is not seriously addressed by Plan Colombia. Drug consumption, not drug production, drives the drug trade and its associated violence in the US. Plan Colombia calls upon the US military, particularly the Army, to provide significantly increased levels of assistance both to train Colombians and to maintain US supplied equipment. This requirement sets the stage for possible direct US involvement in Colombia's internal problems, as well as subjects US military personnel to the corrosive effects of the drug cartels. Plan Colombia also presents the possibility that if successful in eradicating coca fields, the drug supply problem may be exacerbated as hard-pressed drug cartels may begin to synthetically manufacture cocaine.