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Colombian Cocaine War a Failure in U.S.

Plan Colombia has failed, according to the New York Times. Jacob Sullen at Reason notes:

Five years and $3 billion into the most aggressive counternarcotics operation ever here, American and Colombian officials say they have eradicated a record-breaking million acres of coca plants, yet cocaine remains as available as ever on American streets, perhaps more so.

Drug War Rant comments:

This is five times as much as the federal government spends on the arts. Now you may disagree with arts funding, and you may not like all the art that comes from arts funding, but arts funding at least doesn't destroy the rainforest, increase international violence and terrorism, spread poison on poor farmers' crops with nothing to show for it -- at least with the arts funding you can get a pretty good symphony and some excellent arts in the schools now and then.

Further evidence the war on cocaine supply has failed to affect demand or use: today's Denver Post article, Cocaine Demons Stalk Aspen.

"We had kind of hoped that that so-called 'coke epidemic' talk from the 1980s had gone away, but in the last year or so, we have been hearing more and more about it," says Shelley Molz, executive director of the Valley Partnership for Drug Prevention.

.... Police Chief Loren Ryerson, who has lived in Aspen for nearly 30 years, says that from his vantage point, cocaine use has remained steady and is not out of line with other communities.

What has changed, Ryerson says, is that public money for treatment is dwindling. "Substance abuse is happening in everybody's community," he says. "The human tragedy for those people looking for help, is that the resources are just disappearing."

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