Since President Ronald Reagan initiated an all-out "war on drugs" in 1982, the United States has been spending tens of billions of dollars a year in an attempt to control the trafficking and use of illicit drugs. Most of those dollars have been used to support stricter drug enforcement.

Current U.S. drug policy is based on the logic of deterrence, which assumes that targeting the drug supply through aggressive law enforcement will deter drug use by making drugs scarcer, more expensive and more difficult to buy. Drug enforcement, interdiction and overseas programs to halt foreign drug supplies continue to dominate spending, accounting for two-thirds of the federal drug budget. Less punitive demand-side measures such as treatment, prevention and education play a secondary role.

On One Hand...

Illegal drug production in Colombia and other source countries constitute a threat to U.S. national security and the well-being of our citizens. Without effective supply reduction programs, cheap and easily-obtainable drugs can undercut the effectiveness of demand reduction programs and increase the drug threat to our communities.

Eliminating the cultivation of illicit drugs is an effective approach to combating availability in the United States. Where crops are destroyed or left unharvested, no drugs can enter the system. It is analogous to removing a malignant tumor before it can metastasize.

Interdiction disrupts drug flow, increases risks to traffickers, drives them to less efficient routes and methods, and prevents significant amounts of drugs from getting to the United States.

On the Other Hand...

Fighting drugs from the supply side isn't working. Attempts at interdiction and eradication of foreign crops have been costly and unsuccessful. Despite the expenditure of more than $35 billion since 1982 on interdiction programs and efforts to disrupt drug production in the "source countries," evidence this year points to a glut of coca, cocaine and heroin on the U.S. market. Attempts to suppress the drug supply will not succeed as long as the U.S. public demand for illegal drugs continues and profits run high.

Drug policy should be shifted to a focus on the domestic roots of the problem — the demand — and on requiring greater attention to treatment, education and prevention. A 1999 RAND study concluded that $34 million invested in treatment reduces cocaine use as much as $366 million invested in interdiction or $783 million in source-country programs.

U.S. drug policy needs a new bottom line — one that focuses not on reducing the total number of people who use drugs, but rather on reducing the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug use and drug prohibition.

• The federal government spends close to $20 billion per year on combating illegal drugs.

• More than 400,000 people are now incarcerated in the United States for drug law violations — an eightfold increase since 1980.

• U.S. government funding for anti-drug efforts in Latin American has increased more than 150 percent over the last 10 years. Yet by the State Department's estimates, worldwide coca cultivation is 11.7 percent higher, and opium production has doubled over that time period.

• 40 percent of addicts who needed treatment in 1998 received it.

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Drug Enforcement Agency, Drug Policy Foundation