Copping to the Poppy Crop Flop

As the UNODC notes, "the production costs of drugs comprise only a tiny fraction of their retail cost" (a fact "entirely attributable to their illegality"). That's one reason source control is futile: It does not have a noticeable impact on the street price of drugs, which acquire most of their value after arriving in destination countries. But if Holbrooke is right that crop eradication is a counterproductive "waste of money" in Afghanistan, how can it be a good idea in Colombia, Peru or Bolivia?

Focusing on traffickers, which is what the United States now plans to do in Afghanistan, is no more effective at reducing access to drugs than focusing on farmers. "Traffickers have proven to be resilient and innovative," the UNODC notes. Consequently, it says, "law enforcement has not succeeded in stopping the flow of drugs," and the most that can be expected is to shift the traffic from one route to another.

Meanwhile, the UNODC concedes, prohibition breeds "violence and corruption" while delivering "obscene profits" not only to the Taliban but to rebels, terrorists and thugs throughout the world, from Helmand province to Ciudad Juarez. The report notes that the attempt to prevent people from using politically incorrect intoxicants has "enriched dangerous criminals, who kill and bribe their way from the countries where drugs are produced to the countries where drugs are consumed."

UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa has a solution, however. "It is no longer sufficient to say: no to drugs," he writes. "We have to state an equally vehement: no to crime." Why didn't anyone think of that before?