It is our unwillingness to accept moral culpability for our drug problems that is primarily responsible for the death of Roni Bowers and her daughter. The Peruvian Air Force was merely the agent that carried out this U.S. policy.

It seems that we don't have the imagination or the stomach to attack drug demand here in the United States. Half the people who need drug treatment do not receive it because it is not available. Instead, over 500,000 nonviolent drug offenders are currently in prison -- they are also victims of the misguided war on drugs.

Other victims of this war are small subsistence farmers in southern Colombia whose food crops are being destroyed by aerial spraying intended to kill coca plants. The Amazon rain forest is also being sprayed with Ultra-RoundupTM and is suffering significant damage as a result.

Last year Congress approved a $1.3 billion funding package for Colombia, mostly for the military there. Part of the aid was for aerial spraying of coca crops. In just 2 1/2 months the planes sprayed almost 75,000 acres. The bulk of the spraying was carried out around a cluster of four towns controlled by paramilitary forces: La Horminga, El Placer, La Dorada and San Miguel. Legitimate food crops were also destroyed in the same operation in which coca was destroyed. I visited these villages and witnessed first-hand the devastating impact of U.S.-funded aerial spraying.

Tens of thousands of gallons of the toxic herbicide are being sprayed on coca plants. The herbicide, glyphosate, also falls on family farms, killing corn, yucca, banana fields, community wells and rivers and the rain forest. Spraying is killing legal crops along with coca and is leading innocent families to starvation. It is having disastrous effects on Amazon biodiversity.

The campaign does not stop production of coca. It merely moves it to another area of the Andes. As long as there is demand here in the United States, small subsistence farmers will produce coca leaves for a small amount of cash.

Here in the United States, government should provide drug treatment on demand, treating addiction as a public health problem. As Colombian President Andres Pastrana said recently, economic and military pressure on drug-producing countries makes little sense unless the "consumer countries" do their part.

The problem of illicit drug crops is inextricably bound up with the desperate struggle of small farmers to survive in a region of total neglect. Only through a negotiated settlement with the guerrillas will the 40 years of violence end. And only the transformation of rural Colombia through programs of land reform, massive investment in farm-to-market roads, schools, health centers and access to credit will make it possible for farmers to move entirely to legitimate crops.

With this kind of support for alternative crops, the campesinos' dependence on illicit drugs will diminish and ultimately disappear. Dialogue with the guerrilla organizations and civil society is crucial to the success of Plan Colombia.

U.S. military aid and funding for aerial spraying in Colombia must stop. It is time to question this misguided and dangerous policy. Perhaps the deaths of Roni and Charity Bowers will help President Bush, Congress and all Americans demand an end to the current war on drugs. Instead of attacking the supply side in Colombia and Peru, we must focus on demand here.

© Copyright 2001, The News & Observer

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