Colext/Macondo Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior -------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 9:27 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MN: US FL: OPED: Oppose Plan Colombia - End Drug Prohibition Newshawk: Alan Randell Pubdate: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Address: One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693 Fax: (305) 376-8950 Website: http://www.herald.com/ Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald Author: Brant C. Hadaway Note: Brant C. Hadaway is a law student at the University of Miami. His article Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act will be published in the 2000-2001 edition of the University of Miami Law Review. OPPOSE PLAN COLOMBIA; END DRUG PROHIBITION Congress and President Clinton recently approved a $1.3 billion in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking. Unfortunately, Plan Colombia is based on the authoritarian conceit that we can solve both the problems of poverty in the Andes and drug addiction in America by exporting guns, herbicides and helicopters. In fact, this plan will only increase instability, displace the Colombian peasantry and hasten the destruction of the rain forest while making the drug trade more profitable than ever. It is time to consider an alternative that recognizes economics, history and human nature: The Colombian peasants who produce cocaine are responding rationally to market forces in the best American tradition. Pick a coca plant, process the leaves and out comes a substance worth nearly five times its weight in gold! And the destruction of some coca plants only increases the value of those that remain. It is senseless and arrogant for us to rain death on Colombian farmers, while telling them what crops they can grow, to protect Americans from their own appetites. Only if we end prohibition, while reducing demand through education and treatment, will market values for coca drop to a level that other crops will become attractive to Colombian farmers. Plan Colombia will lead to greater deforestation, because our policy of spraying herbicides and sending military aid pushes coca cultivation deeper into the jungle. As of 1997, more than 1.75 million acres of rain forest had been cleared to make way for coca production. That figure is undoubtedly higher today, and it rapidly will increase as our efforts to eradicate coca become more aggressive. Because cocaine manufacturing occurs beyond reach of regulators, it is estimated that more than 200,000 tons of chemical wastes are dumped into the Colombian environment annually. Add to this the herbicidal and our government's plan to wage biological warfare using a fungus, fusarium oxysporum, and you have a looming ecological catastrophe.It is arrogant for us to rain death on Colombian farmers. Colombia's misery is inseparable from our own: incarceration rates, gang violence, blood-borne diseases and police corruption are worse than ever, and drugs have never been cheaper, purer, and more available. That despite combined state and federal anti-drug expenditures of $52 billion annually and rising. Ending prohibition would create a huge ``peace dividend,'' here and abroad. If legal entities were allowed to control the trade in coca and its by-products, the drug cartels would cease to exist. Also, Colombian peasants would have a legitimate way of making a stable income without having to fear the multifaced pincer of FARC, the Colombian army, herbicidal spraying and the paramilitaries. The peasants could safely maintain their crops in one place, thus reducing the destruction of rain forests and making the process amenable to environmental regulation. In the United States, we would pull the rug out from under the street trade. Legitimate traders in coca would be able to take their contract disputes to court instead of the street. Drug users would pay taxes to support treatment on demand, and law enforcement once again could focus on public safety and violent crime. Legalization would not be a panacea, but it would allow us to allocate public resources much more efficiently, and it would give Colombia its best chance at peace. __________________________________________________________________________ Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. --- MAP posted-by: Eric Ernst -------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE COLEXT as the BODY of the message. Un archivo de colext puede encontrarse en: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ cortesia de Anibal Monsalve Salazar
