Problems with Current U.S. Policy.

The drug certification process is bad drug policy and bad foreign policy.

It is bad drug policy for three reasons. First, it sends mixed signals to other countries about the rewards or punishments for their efforts in the war on drugs. To date Mexico has always been fully certified, although the degree of its actual cooperation with the U.S. and commitment to drug control were questionable. Despite numerous hearings in past years about the shortcomings in Mexico's drug control efforts, it was clear that the administration and congressional leadership would not permit the country to be decertified because it is a major trading partner. Those countries that are repeatedly certified are those with whom the U.S. does not have relations, such as Afghanistan and Burma, making the sanctions symbolic at best. If drug producing countries are important enough to other U.S. interests, their drug control performance will not be the sole basis of certification decisions.

Second, while cast as a means to increase cooperation, the process repeatedly fosters conflict. In some cases, reluctant governments have been pushed to crack down on cartels, expand eradication, or permit U.S. ships to pursue traffickers into their territorial waters. But the imposition of such measures comes with a high cost. Anti-U.S. sentiment is stoked by newspaper headlines across the region denouncing the hypocrisy of the U.S. for judging the efforts of others to cut off the supply for our insatiable demand. Leaders stepping up to the challenge of drug control are lambasted for yielding to Yankee dictates. Threats of withdrawing cooperation regularly follow the inevitable tensions surrounding the policy. Mexico's former president, Ernesto Zedillo, was perhaps the most blunt, calling the certification process an offense and suggesting that the U.S. be subjected to the same review process.

Third, and most important, certification symbolizes and reinforces the misguided U.S. international drug control strategy that concentrates on stopping illegal drugs from entering the United States. The strategy has failed to achieve this goal. Despite years of costly drug control programs, the United Nations reports that international interdiction efforts only intercept approximately 13% of heroin and 28-40% of cocaine.

While drug warriors attribute this lack of success to insufficient firepower or failing morality, market forces are primarily to blame. Trafficking drugs brings astronomical profits. Even when effective, eradication and interdiction efforts result in only marginal and localized increases in drug prices. Supply siders argue that price increases decrease use. However, when prices rise, trafficking profits remain high or even rise. Price increases raise the incentives for new growers and traffickers to step in and meet the demand.

The drug certification process has skewed spending on drug control programs, as it allows the U.S. government to place the blame abroad without taking a serious look at the failure of U.S. efforts to curb demand. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the budget for prevention programs increased by only 33% between 1994 and 2001 while funding for international drug control programs increased by 175%, and spending on interdiction increased by 68%. These increases ignore the findings of ONDCP studies that concluded that treatment for cocaine addiction is 10 times more cost effective than interdiction and 23 times more effective than eradication.

In addition to being bad drug policy, certification is also bad foreign policy, particularly toward Latin America. The hostility and enmity generated every year by the process strains relations over a wide range of issues, holding other priorities hostage to the single issue of drugs. The minimal commitment of resources that the U.S. makes to human rights, democracy, or civilian control of the military is overshadowed (and sometimes directly undermined) by the focus on drugs and the certification exercise.

In the Andean countries, U.S. drug policy has overwhelmed human rights concerns. With U.S. funding and training, Andean governments have established special courts to hear terrorism and drug trafficking cases. But these courts themselves systematically violate internationally recognized norms of due process. The anti-narcotics police forces that the U.S. has created in Bolivia brazenly intimidate, abuse, and torture peasants while carrying out eradication campaigns. The U.S. maintained a relationship with Peru's ex-intelligence chief, Vladimir Montesinos, who they viewed as an ally in the war on drugs, despite concerns about his involvement in human rights violations. Ties were cut only after it was publicly revealed that Montesinos was involved in corruption and implicated in arms and drug trafficking. In Colombia, the U.S. is pursuing a militarized anti-drug strategy that will escalate conflict, exacerbate the humanitarian crisis, and ultimately damage prospects for peace.

Certification distorts the U.S. national conversation on foreign policy toward Latin America. What is needed is more reflection about U.S. foreign policies that are central to improving U.S.-Latin American relations. Yet instead of better reflection on our common interests in and aspirations for such issues as economic development, human rights, trade, environmental protection, human migration, and drug use, the policy debate too often devolves into debates about drug certification.

Key Problems

* Certification is bad drug policy because it sends mixed signals to other countries, it fosters conflict, and it reinforces the focus on the failed "source-country" control strategy.

* Certification is bad foreign policy because it holds other priorities, such as economic development, human rights, and the environment, hostage to the single issue of drug control.

* Certification distorts our national conversation on foreign policy by focusing media attention and political debate on drugs, obscuring the search for our common interests with Latin America.