19 Aug 2006
Colombia’s Coca Survives U.S. Plan to Uproot It

Sometimes numbers add up to nothing. After all, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon your talking about real money... putting it on a bit more human scale, this single "battle" in the "war on drugs" cost every man, woman and child in the United States $15.66, using a round 300 million as our population.

If the estimates are correct, and we indeed spend $40 billion a year on this insane war, that works out to a little over $133 for every man, woman and child in the US, or $333 per taxpayer (with a base of 120 million taxpayers). Every year.

And what have we gotten for our hard earned dollars? An economic sector completely controlled by criminal gangs and based on smuggling, with all it's attendant murder and mayhem. And nearly all politicians from both major parties wholeheartedly endorse this effort, despite it being such a provable waste of money and time.

And people wonder why I'm cynical about government...

A $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia’s coca crop has left the availability of cocaine on U.S. streets unchanged.

(link) [New York Times]

07:32 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link