WE HAVE BEEN 'WINNING' THE WAR ON DRUGS FOR 90 YEARS

One can imagine how delighted the people at the Colombian Embassy
were when they read the Globe and Mail last week. One article after
another about their country -- and none focussed on drugs and murder.

Instead, the theme was that after decades of civil war and criminal
chaos Colombia has been transformed into a land of stability and
optimism. The mood is "buoyant, hopeful, and utterly
entrepreneurial," one story reported. Colombia is "an eco-paradise
with bustling cities," another burbled.

The people at the Mexican Embassy were probably much less pleased by
what they read. "Suspected drug hit men stormed a private party and
killed 17 people in the northern Mexican city of Torreon on Sunday in
one of the deadliest attacks in Mexico's drug war," read one story.
Another reported on a car bombing. Gangsters apparently dressed a
bound man in a police uniform and called in a report of a wounded
officer. When police, paramedics, and a doctor rushed to the man's
aid, the bomb was detonated. At least three died.

The contrast between the two countries is exaggerated, of course.
Colombia continues to be the world's largest producer of cocaine,
there are still leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, and
human rights continue to be violated in many horrible ways; and
despite the bad press Mexico is getting, much of the country is
unscathed by the savage war with, and between, drug gangs.

But it is true that Colombia is more stable and safer, for most, than
it has been in decades. It is also true that Mexico is continuing its
descent into the hell Colombia so recently exited.

Inevitably, some are drawing the conclusion that Mexico must do
whatever it was that Colombia did. And since what Colombia did was
engage in a massive escalation of military and police power,
supported by billions of dollars from the United States and
elsewhere, that's the medicine Mexico needs.

This is unspeakably foolish. And we can expect Canada will be asked
to help fund this foolishness, as we did in Colombia. So let's get
this straight now: What happened in Colombia is not a model for
Mexico; what happened in Colombia is the cause of what's happening in Mexico.

Let's go back to the 1970s. For decades, cocaine had been a
relatively obscure jet-set drug produced in Bolivia and Peru and
smuggled in small quantities by minor traffickers. But then its
popularity soared -- especially in the United States and Canada. The
scale of trafficking grew proportionately. Usually, the traffickers
were Bolivian or Peruvian but Colombian marijuana smugglers
increasingly acted as middlemen.

By the early 1980s, the Bolivians and Peruvians were sticking mostly
to production, selling shipments of cocaine to Colombians who
transported the drugs through the Caribbean into Florida. Dominating
the most profitable part of the trade, the Colombians got very rich.
And powerful. Colombia increasingly resembled a "narco-state."

In the mid-1980s, the American government poured interdiction
resources into Florida and the Caribbean. Under pressure, the
Colombians increasingly shipped cocaine to Mexico and hired Mexican
gangsters to smuggle it across the border into the U.S.

Meanwhile, American programs to suppress coca growing and cocaine
production in Bolivia and Peru were ramped up and there were steep
declines in exports by the early 1990s -- which were more than offset
by exploding production in the many regions of Colombia where the
government's hold was tenuous.

About the same time, Colombian and American officials put the squeeze
on Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. In the mid-1990s, the Cali
cartel was targeted. Under pressure, the Colombians increasingly sold
cocaine shipments to Mexican gangsters, who built their own smuggling
and trafficking networks. By the end of the decade, all Colombia's
major drug lords were dead or in prison but thanks to a proliferation
of smaller networks, and the increasing involvement of Colombia's
leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in the drug trade,
cocaine exports actually rose.

Meanwhile, the wealth and power of the Mexican drug lords grew rapidly.

See where this story is going? I was in Colombia and Mexico at the
end of the 1990s, and I well remember Mexicans telling me how they
feared "Colombianization." They were right to be worried. Several
years later, the Mexican government took down all the major Mexican
drug lords. What followed this "victory" was the war we see now -- a
war pitting the government against gangsters, but also a war of
gangsters against each other in a struggle for control of the
fantastically profitable trade routes. "Colombianization," in other words.

In the war on drugs, that's the way it always goes: Eliminate
kingpins and gangsters battle to be the successor; drive down
production in one place and it balloons in another; stamp out a
smuggling route and new routes are created. The market will not be
denied. It's Economics 101.

Look at Afghanistan. It was never a major heroin producer. But
"victories" in West Asia and the Golden Triangle of southeast Asia
pushed the drug trade into that sad country and now it's paying for
weapons that kill Canadian soldiers. With victories like that we have
been "winning" the war on drugs for 90 years -- and today the illicit
drug trade is far bigger and far more destructive than ever.

But editorialists, politicians, and drug cops never connect the dots.
"More of the same," they urge. "More of the same."

The last thing Mexico needs is more of the same. What it needs,
desperately, is for governments to follow the advice of the Vienna
Declaration, which I discussed Friday, and "undertake a transparent
review of the effectiveness of current drug policies" -- followed by
"a full policy reorientation." Until then, the madness will continue.