Next steps in Colombia.

COLOMBIA; UNITED States; LATIN America

The article focuses on the United States' involvement in the war on drugs in Latin America. In 2000 U.S. President Bill Clinton launched an ambitious program of mainly military aid called Plan Colombia. In his budget, President George W. Bush proposes to keep aid to Colombia largely unchanged, at some $742 million. Before this becomes a permanent commitment, Americans and Colombians should look carefully at its value. Though sold to Americans as a decisive move in the "war" on drugs, the core of Plan Colombia is counter-insurgency. Bush allowed the aid to be deployed not just against drugs but against Colombia's illegal armies. Cocaine is as cheap as ever. Drug prohibition in rich countries continues to fail--at huge cost for Latin America's democracies, whose battle to enforce the rule of law is contested by powerful drug mobs. Plan Colombia has offered no evidence to weaken The Economist's conviction that cocaine should be legalized. As long as prohibition continues, Latin American governments have to try to contain the drug trade's ill-effects.