The Long, Bloody Trail

The recent series of articles by The Times on Latin America’s cocaine industry brought into sharp focus the sad and grim reality often overlooked by U.S. government leaders who pressure poor foreign nations to control illicit drug trafficking: The problem would not exist without the enormous demand in this rich nation for cocaine and other illegal drugs.

Times reporters followed the cocaine trail from the jungles of Peru and Bolivia, to the lairs of brutal dope smugglers in Colombia and Mexico, to the pathetic consumers who abuse the drug on the mean streets of New York City and in the comfortable suburbs of Los Angeles.

The cocaine trail is long, winding and bloody. And the industry that spawned it is thriving despite intense efforts by police in Latin America and the United States to destroy it. The reason, in the eloquent words of one federal narcotics agent, is that the cocaine industry represents “supply and demand at its ‘finest.’ As long as you have the demand, someone will continue to supply it--no matter what the risk.”

Diplomatic pressure by the United States on the Latin American countries producing cocaine has helped prod them into more forceful efforts to stop the drug at its source. Foreign aid for those governments has also helped, whether it is given in the form of equipment for the security forces that combat drug traffickers, or in development money for poor peasants who grow coca leaves--the one crop whose value has steadily increased in recent years. But, as Peruvian President Alan Garcia said in a United Nations speech recently, all this spending will be futile unless the U.S. government puts more effort into cutting off the demand for drugs here.

It is ironic, for example, that while the Reagan Administration has been increasing the amount of money that it spends abroad to help fight the cocaine traffic (it now stands at about $50 million per year), it has cut back on funds for drug-education programs in this country (the amount has fallen from $404 million in fiscal 1981 to $253 million in fiscal 1985). This shortsightedness makes you wonder how serious all the Administration’s forceful words against drug smuggling and drug abuse really are. U.S. rhetoric sounds hollow to Latin American diplomats who see people openly using cocaine and other drugs at the Fourth of July concert on the Washington Mall.

Civic and clerical authorities have tried to combat the abuse of coca leaves ever since the Spanish conquered the Inca empire in the 16th Century. All these campaigns have failed; everyday use of the leaf is deeply rooted in the culture of Andean peoples. Modern-day efforts to limit coca cultivation score occasional victories, but it is unlikely that they will be any more successful in eradicating coca than the conquistadores and Inquisitors who preceded them.

Until the prosperous consumers of the richest nation on Earth are persuaded to turn away from cocaine, the Incas’ “plant of plants” will remain a source of trouble for this country and the poor nations that produce it.