Drug treatment should be priority

To the editor;

Regarding your July 28 editorial, "Fighting drugs," not only is President Bush seeking to cut funding for the domestic war on methamphetamine, but the Bush administration continues to wage an international drug war that stands to boost meth production. Plan Colombia is the equivalent of throwing good money after bad. U.S. tax dollars would be better spent addressing the socioeconomic causes of civil strife in Colombia rather than applying overwhelming military force to attack the symptoms. We're not doing the Colombian people any favors by funding civil war.

Nor are Americans being protected from drugs. Destroy the Colombian coca crop, and production will boom in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Destroy every last plant in South America, and domestic methamphetamine production will increase to meet the demand for cocaine-like drugs. The self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are seemingly incapable of applying basic economic principles to drug policy. Instead of wasting scarce resources waging a futile supply-side drug war abroad, we should be funding cost-effective drug treatment here at home.

ROBERT SHARPE, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C.