U.S. Drug Policies Imposed on Bolivia

* I read with interest the article about the U.S.once again forcing its failed drug policies on a struggling Third World nation, Bolivia (Sept. 29). Third World nations will stop producing narcotics as soon as the U.S. populace quits using them. Neither is going to happen.

Our drug policies do not work, yet the government insists on pumping billions of dollars into a program that kills innocent people, promotes crime and crowds our jails with nonviolent drug offenders. U.S. policymakers must realize that the “war on drugs” has failed.

Surely, we would be better served if law enforcement focused its resources on controlling the unending violence which plagues our society. Taking the enormous profits out of the drug trade would immediately lower violent crime. To those of you who do not think drugs should be decriminalized, answer the following question: Do you think drug growers, smugglers and dealers want illegal narcotics legal? You are on their side.

ROBERT SOMERS

Newport Beach

* Robert Charles, a counsel for a House subcommittee on national security, is quoted in the article as saying, “The best way to fight cocaine is to go to the plant.” Attitudes like this, which are the basis of much of our drug policy, fail consistently to take into account the demand for cocaine in the United States and Europe.

The certification process that the U.S. has mandated on our Latin American neighbors is misguided. It imposes unilateral policy initiatives such as crop eradication and stiffer sentences for low-level growers without attacking the root cause of the hemisphere’s drug problem: U.S. consumption. In addition, money that could be spent by these cash-strapped nations for economic development is wasted on eradication efforts that are doomed to marginal results at best due to the lack of other economic enterprises for rural populations.

EDUARDO MARTINEZ

Placentia

* Washington’s drug policy in Bolivia will fail because it does not take into account the culture of the Aymara and Quechua people and their relationship to coca. The Bolivian people do not have a drug problem, the United States does. In the meantime hundreds of millions of our tax dollars are wasted on creating strife in other lands.

GARY MILLIKEN

Santa Barbara