Fighting `war' begins at home

Somewhere in Colombia on a plot of land, peasants are growingcoca, the raw material for cocaine - powder and crack. They aregrowing coca even though U.S. taxpayers have tripled the aid theysend to Colombia to halt coca production.

In fact, cultivation has soared 50 percent. U.S. and Colombianauthorities predict the production of coca will increase by that muchagain in the next two years, according to a Los Angeles Timesarticle.

That means we are not only losing the drug war at home, but wealso are losing it abroad - and we are paying umpteen millions ofdollars to be losers.

Still, the guys in charge of this war aren't ready to try adifferent tactic.

Last February, the U.S. State Department certified Colombia as afully cooperating partner in the war against drugs, even though cocacultivation has moved from family plots to plantations.

So while complaining about the stepped-up coca production that hasflooded the United States and Europe with cocaine, U.S. drug czarGen. Barry R. McCaffrey is asking for an additional $600 million tohelp Colombia fight drugs.

I'd rather pay incentives to young Americans to stop selling drugsat home.

There are many reasons why we are losing this war. Primary amongthem is the fact that too many older Americans are sniffing andsmoking cocaine, and too many young people are making a livingselling drugs.

Things are pretty bad when the wife of an Army colonel who wasfighting drugs in Colombia is accused of shipping cocaine fromColombia to New York.

Laurie Anne Heitt, 36, is charged with drug conspiracy. Accordingto reports, a civilian driver of U.S. military commanders also isimplicated.

But let's leave Colombia and our $289 million we've spent thus farthis year, and look at what's happening at home.

I've got to tell you about Junior.

Junior is my 20-year-old nephew by marriage. Though a likablekid, for a while he had everyone worried. There were times hisfamily thought he wasn't going to graduate from high school.

And they knew what that would mean - no job. If he couldn't get ajob, he would be tempted to sell drugs in his Detroit neighborhoodlike so many other kids. If he joined the drug trade, he would landin prison, a victim of the so-called War on Drugs.

But on a visit to Detroit last weekend, we saw a changed Junior.He was working a construction job and bragging about earning $12 anhour. That's enough to keep him in the cool threads he likes and adecent car. More important, a job gave Junior pride.

A lot of kids in the inner city are like Junior. Only for many ofthem, there is no construction job. Instead, they find work sellingdrugs. It is work in the same way the peasants in Colombia work theland cultivating coca plants.

This failed drug war has filled America's prisons with these youngpeople.

Although crime is declining in America, the population of U.S.prisons is growing. Worse yet, when those coca plants are peddled onthe streets as crack cocaine, the offense is treated as a crime 100times more serious than powdered cocaine. The cheaper form ofcocaine has put a disproportionate number of black and Hispanicyouths behind bars for longer periods of time.

Despite the outcry over unfairness, the disparity in sentencinghas not stopped the drug dealing because drug dealing is work.

We would stand a better chance of stopping the flow of drugs if weaddressed the economics of the illegal drug trade. If we can sendmillions of dollars to Colombia, some of which goes to keep peasantsfrom cultivating coca, we certainly can spend as much on urban youthsto keep them from turning to drug dealing.

Half of that $289 million should have gone to provide jobs forurban youths so fewer of them enter the drug trade.

For those who are appalled at the very suggestion, what is thedifference? Our economic drug policies should not be more favorableto Colombians than they are to our own people.

There's a population of young people in America who are like thoseColombia peasants.

I'd rather my tax dollars be spent trying to keep them from theillegal drug trade and out of America's prisons.

E-mail: marym@suntimes.com