A New Plan for Colombia

[bemildred]

But exactly how "effective" has Plan Colombia been? Before the American people are asked to continue spending $2 million a day on aid to Colombia, they should take a closer at the Plan.

If Plan Colombia was intended to reduce the supply of cocaine, raise its cost, and therefore, cut the numbers of users, then the program has been a costly failure. After five years, the price of cocaine is lower, and the number of cocaine users is growing. According to a recent unclassified report from the National Drug Intelligence Center, "key indicators of domestic cocaine availability show stable or slightly increased availability in drug markets throughout the country."

Plan Colombia's failure to reduce the supply of cocaine to the US should not be surprising. We have years of experience and mountains of studies that should lead us to not expect otherwise. Since 1980, the US has spent nearly $45 billion on stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the country. Illicit drug prices have dropped dramatically over that period.

In 1994, the US Army and the Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned a RAND study, which concluded that treatment for heavy cocaine users is twenty-three times more effective than drug crop eradication and other source-country programs. The study recommended that "if an additional dollar is going to be spent on drug control, it should be spent on treatment, not on a supply-control program."

ZMAG

[Quakerfriend]

1. The * clan has no intention of stopping illegal drugs from

entering the US. The $$ from illegal drug trafficking is all part of their cabal.

They want a foot hold in South America, and bedding down next to oil-rich Venezuela was likely by design.

The Colombian people are extraordinary, and I know first hand of their bitter hatred of American policy. The widespread spraying of surfactant laden chemicals is putting the people of this marvelous land, and the Amazon basin itself, at enormous peril. Such surfactant are NOT LEGAL in the US. So, the chem companies DUMP them in other countries.

[bemildred]

2. Oh, you tin-foil hatter you.! Are you standing on the grassy knoll?

Yeah, but I suppose this gets listened to better if they pretend
"Plan Colombia" is about stopping drugs and spreading "democracy".

[aneerkoinos]

3. Surfactant not legal?

How do you know, since even the trademark of that surfactant is HUSH HUSH VERY SECRET for national security reasons, thats what they said when Ecuadorian peasants getting spraid sued... :D :D :D