editorial comment It does not work, so let's do more of the same....April's fool day indeed!

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A new White House report showed that a massive aerial spraying offensive last year failed to dent the area of coca under cultivation in Colombia.

But President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops.

The war on drugs in Colombia, the world's main cocaine-producing country and a major supplier of heroin, has cost more than $3 billion in U.S. aid here since 2000. Critics of Washington's effort say the report indicates the Colombia and U.S. governments are losing the war.

"The U.S. government's own data provides stark evidence that the drug war is failing to achieve its most basic objectives," said John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank critical of U.S. drug policies in Colombia.

The report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said that despite a record-setting aerial eradication offensive, 281,694 acres of coca remained in Colombia at the end of 2004 -- an increase from the 281,323 acres left over after spraying the year earlier.

Walsh also pointed out that prices of cocaine and heroin have been steadily dropping over the years on U.S. streets, indicating availability of the drugs has not diminished.

Peasant farmers in Colombia grow most of the coca, the bushy green plant that provides the main ingredient of cocaine; convert it to coca paste and sell it to Colombian rebels, paramilitaries or other drug-trafficking groups, which then purify it into cocaine and export it.

'Hard-core cultivators'
Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert with the Center for International Policy in Washington, said the White House report released March 25 demonstrates that the peasants -- most of whom live in poverty and who have few alternate means of employment -- are constantly replanting coca after their crops are sprayed by the crop dusters.

"The inescapable conclusion we can draw from this data is that our fumigation program is not discouraging Colombian peasants from growing coca," Isacson said.

The Associated Press reported last month that large-scale coca production was moving for the first time into the extensive jungles of Choco state, in northwest Colombia, with peasant farmers felling chunks of virgin rainforest in order to plant millions of coca seedlings.

David Murray, a top official in the White House drug office, insisted there were positive signs, pointing out that coca cultivation peaked in 2001 at 419,575 acres, up from 1999 levels of 302,697 acres.

"What you have now is hard-core cultivators...who are faced with extinction of their business. And what they are doing is, they're staying put and replanting as rapidly as they can. And we're coming back and hitting them with eradication," Murray said in a telephone interview. "How long can they dodge, how long can they hold out? Well, that's a tough fight. It's a 15-rounder."

Uribe, in an interview with local RCN radio, said he was undeterred by the report that coca cultivation remained at 2003 levels, even though a record 337,427 acres were fumigated last year.

"Our will is to continue seizing the drugs and to continue with the fumigation," Uribe said.

The White House drug office said that while the area under coca cultivation remained "statistically unchanged" over the previous year, the fumigation diminished the potential production of cocaine by 7 percent in 2004 to 430 metric tons, because newly planted fields produce less cocaine than mature coca.

Uribe added that he was waiting for the United Nations to release its own report on coca production in coming months.

Sometimes the reports, using different systems to estimate the area under cultivation, contradict each other. For example, the U.N. drug agency said that in 2003, 212,506 acres were used to grow coca in Colombia, while the White House drug office's estimate was 281,323 acres.

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