Repeating failed drug policies will not give solution

There's an axiom that only an insane person keeps doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Yet that is exactly what our government continues to do with its drug policies.

President Bush recently announced that the U.S. is planning a big aid package to help Mexico combat the illegal drug trade. Our first observation is that Mexico should have enough resources of its own to deal with the drug trade there, if that is its desire, without U.S. taxpayers chipping in to help.

We also doubt a U.S. contribution will be any more effective than anti-drug aid programs of the past which have wasted huge amounts of public resources with no evidence of improvement in the nation's illicit drug problem.

A good example of one of these failed aid efforts is the so-called “Plan Colombia” effort started during the Clinton administration where $800 million to $1.3 billion has been sent to Colombia every year since 1998.

Let's look at how successful this aid effort has been. The number of acres under coca cultivation in Colombia actually has risen in recent years, and the street price of cocaine in the United States has declined, which is exactly the opposite of what the plan was supposed to accomplish.

In other words, the program has made things worse, not better.

The continued availability of illegal drugs in the U.S. should be testimony enough that the “war on drugs” - despite its huge cost at all levels of government and tremendous social disruption - is a failure.

Some may well ask how is it possible to throw so much effort and money at this problem yet still fail. The answer is that the drug trade is driven by the same market forces that drive other human transactions.

Despite the best efforts of law enforcement, the demand for drugs still exists. When law enforcement attempts to crack down on the supply, it encourages drug traffickers to try even harder to meet that demand due to the huge potential profits.

Former American University law professor Arnold Trebach called it the “iron law of prohibition.” Concentrated enforcement, he observed, leads to traffickers moving toward more compact, more easily concealed and higher-margin illicit drugs. In practice this means moving from less harmful drugs like marijuana toward more harmful drugs like heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine - making the drug problem even worse.

It is a vicious cycle that continues on and on - doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result. Despite this obvious outcome, the get-tough supporters keep arguing that we just need to fight harder and spend more. President Bush's new effort falls in that category.

The prohibition approach didn't work with alcohol and it doesn't work with drugs. We need to stop doing the same thing over and over again and take steps which recognize and cope with the compulsions of drug use, just as we have done with alcohol use.