Earlier this month the U.S. govern
ment released its annual drug use sur
vey and the news is, well, in `60s drug
culture jargon, a bummer. More
teenagers tried heroin for the first
time last year than ever before. The
number of teenagers who believe that
using cocaine is risky declined to 54+
in 1996 from 63% in 1994. Drug use
among young adults1825 year
oldsis rising. Overall drug usage
among Americans has shown no
change over the past five years.

The good newsthat there was a
drop in overall teenage drug usewas
immeffiately challenged by a Univer
sity of Michigan research group that
said its own survey showed no de
crease in teenage drug use and sharp
Increases in marijuana use among
teenagers.

U.S. policy makers keep finding
reasons why this is so that invariably
point away from America in the time
honored bureaucratic. tradItion of
blaming someone else. The chief vil
lain in the case continues to be Colom
bia. No matter how insatiable the de
mand by U.S. users, the logic in Wash
ington's eyes is that this is all Colom
bia's fault As characterized by State
Department spokesman Nicholas
Burns: "lithe Colombian government
is not effective in fighting the narco
traffickers, it has a negative impact
on us, on poor kids in our cities."
This summer the U.S. Congress
feverishly debated whether to send
more funding for antinarcotics miii
tary assistance to Colombiaeven
though such funding is technically
cut off when a country is decertified
as Colombia has been for the past
two years.

But the real problem is that cocaine
users in American society are doing
such agoodjob of funding the bad guys
in Colomhia that a few more heli
copters to help the good guys is not
likely to make a difference. Just look at
the place: The army is locked in a time
less struggle against exceedingly well
armed guerrillas, who have traded in
their Marxist ideology to become
narcoentrepreneurs equipped with the
best technology money can buy.

`While the army fights the guerril
laswho blow up oil pipelines, rob
banks and slattghter innocent civil
iansangry paramilitary groups,
soul' uut~W d~f~'i'l tlt"iu own jungle
corridors for running drugs, have
joined in the rumble. In 1996 more
than 150,000 Colombians were made
refugees by the violence, Some 33,000
people were killed last year alone. In
the past month scores of peasants
have been murdered and at least five
mayors were kidnapped. Colombian
President Ernesto Samper's own
party urged him to shut down Con
gress and adopt emergency powers in
order to end the violence. Meanwhile
the Colombian National Police, hop
ing to calm the fears of the ohso
pure Amerieans threatened by
morally devoid Colombians, have
been scrambling to eradicate crops,
lock up cartel leaders and destroy
labpratories in the jungles.

One of these days, Colombians who
by and large are not enjoying the
nareoehaos might like to ask Ameri
cans a few questions:

Could all of you 30something pro
fessionals in places like Manhattan,
LA and San l'ranciseo find something
to do other than suck cocaine up your
noses? Could you uppermiddleclass
suburban parents find the courage to
just once deprive your obviously
whackedout children of something
that is destroying their lives? And
could the Baby Boom U.S. President
and his wife possibly find time rou
tinely in their schedules to persoecfly
put some moral leadership behind the
idea that using this stuff is bad? In
deed, why has the percentage of
teenagers who regard drugs as bad or
dangerous dropped straight through
the years of this Presidency?

Absent any such stirrings of per
sonal responsibility or selfcontrol in
the U.S., it's almost comical to think of
our nation's leadership sitting in a
room and thinking hard about how
many more helicopters we should send
down to Colombia to keep drugs off
American streets.