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THIS DRUGS WAR IS JUST LIKE VIETNAM
The United States Is
Bogged Down In An Unwinnable Contest
The United
States is staging a new offensive in the drugs war, most forcefully on the
public relations front. In Bolivia, we are assured, the production
of coca - the plant which is the basis of cocaine - has almost been
eradicated after a three-year US-backed campaign.
In Colombia, an
aerial spraying campaign in the coca-growing heartland of western Putamayo
has reportedly destroyed thousands of acres of crops. Colombian
officials are describing the operation as "a resounding success".
Two senators have just returned, praising the Colombian military's
financial probity and commitment to human rights - a combination of
remarks that just happens to send my personal Geiger counter, which
records bullshit quotient in news reports, completely off the clock.
The word "Vietnam" still haunts policy-making in Washington, and
President Bush has refused to sink further manpower into Colombia.
But if you take the drugs war as a whole, the similarities are
overwhelming. With the very best of intentions, Washington has
committed vast quantities of resources to an unwinnable contest against a
far more committed, hydra-headed enemy. And as in Vietnam, many of
those resources seem devoted to kidding themselves, visiting senators and
the public about operational successes.
A lot of the participants
were stoned out of their brains in Vietnam too. But that war got
stopped because the sons of America's suburbs started being killed and
wounded in large numbers. In this war, those suffering most directly
are the disempowered and voiceless: South American peasants; low-grade
suppliers who get caught and jailed; addicts who end up being driven
further into dependency.
It is a low-level conflict that suits
pretty well everyone else: politicians who like to pretend they are taking
action; recipients of their largesse who make fat livings out of the
funding; the titans of the recreational drug industry who make vast and
almost risk-free profits; and most of their customers, who have enjoyed a
plentiful supply for decades.
Almost every action in this war has
the reverse effect to what was intended. Donnie Marshall, of the US
drug enforcement administration, admitted to Congress last week that the
strikes against coca meant that Colombia has suspended attacks on poppy
plantations, so its heroin exports have increased. Cocaine use has
been dropping in the US, as the nasty effects of crack have become better
known; heroin increase, however, has doubled in five years.
The
Guardian reported last month that the planes were indeed successfully
spraying coca crops; they were also spraying fruit trees, maize plants and
schoolchildren, who were suffering from rashes, headaches and
vomiting. The promised aid to the peasants had of course not
arrived. A Washington Post reporter noted a week ago that on almost
every farm hit by the herbicide, young coca plants were now in
evidence. In Bolivia, where victory is being proclaimed, less than
half the families ( a UN estimate ) have received assistance in planting
alternative crops and most of these crops are failing. It makes
British farm policy looks sensible.
There are tiny scraps of
evidence that the US is starting to wake up to its folly. In its
Hollywoodish kind of way, the successful film Traffic has at least made
the subject topical. A new administration, in which an urge to cut
costs is vying with a dictatorial nature, is showing the odd smidgin of
interest.
The New York-based Drug Policy Foundation says that
500,000 Americans are now behind bars on drugs charges, compared with
50,000 in 1980. ( Of course, most are black so what the heck? ) The
drugs war cost the US more than $ 40 billion last year, according to
the foundation: Yet illegal drugs are cheaper, purer and more readily
available than ever before." Fooling with the supply chain of this
brilliantly successful free market, with occasional prissy lectures to
children, has solved absolutely nothing."
In Britain, the debate
is still bogged down on the minor question of legalising cannabis.
We desperately need someone to understand the bigger picture: that
legalising, controlling, restricting, taxing and de-glamourising
recreational drugs offers massive prizes by breaking the power of the
cartels and gangs, emptying the jails and - if handled properly - cutting
usage as well.
The crimes of about 70% of Britain's prisoners are
in some way related to drugs. There's no chance of sense from the
present government, petrified of both the White House and the Daily
Mail. There's even less hope from Hague and Widdecombe ( the Smith
Square cartel ). Miss Widdecombe is even now probably working on
plans to outlaw sex and rock n' roll as well. But is it remotely
possible that a chastened post-election Conservative party, searching for
a big idea, might actually hit upon a good one?
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