Cocaine Crackdown’s Effect on Colombians

Compliments for the well-researched article “Cocaine Crackdown Has Colombians Fearing War,” Sept. 22. Here in the U.S. we complain long and bitterly about the damage drugs bring upon our society. However, your article goes far at illuminating the price Colombia (and, by inference, other countries in similar circumstances) pays for its drug eradication program. In essence, the illegal trade in drugs in the U.S. has created a “narcotraficante” monster that challenges the Colombian government for power, undermines the authority of the state and causes untold amount of economic destruction.

I am fortunate enough to travel often to Colombia. I can testify that there is a kind of civil war between the half that wants to progress as we would wish them to, and the other half, historically desperately poor, who will consider any sacrifice for the opportunity to profit from this newfound wealth. Your article defines well how otherwise innocent people are driven to grow coca.

It is my view that only the legalization of drugs under strict government control here in the U.S. can, in one blow, decapitate the drug monster we have created here in the U.S. and restore life in Colombia and its sister countries to some degree of normalcy.

JOHN M. MULHOLLAND

Regional Manager

Latin America Ameron

Brea

The Times fails, once again, to connect the wrong-headed U.S. drug prohibition policy with the predictable results: corruption, violence, assassination and murder by organized crime.

These crimes are not caused by drugs or their use. The violent criminal regime is caused by drug prohibition.

Drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition in the 1930s, leads to a reign of violence, not only in our cities, but in the cities and the fields of our neighbors to the south.

The most important story in this mess is not making it onto your pages: Prohibition is not working. No children are being saved from drugs. No one is being deterred.

There is no rational or scientific basis to believe that increased enforcement and interdiction will lead to any better result, but both presidential candidates are calling for this exact policy.

JIM ROSENFIELD

Culver City