By: KENNETH MAXWELL

Folha de São Paulo - Op-ed section - page A2     

George W. Bush loves his "wars", and when he remembers, he loves Mexico. Shortly after he took office on January 20, 2001, Mr. Bush's first act was to travel to visit then Mexican president Vicente Fox at his ranch in Guanajuato. But Mexico did not become a priority for Mr. Bush. Until this week, when Mr. Bush asked the U.S.Congress to appropriate US$500 million to help Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, fight Mexico's increasingly violent domestic drug gangs.

Ironically, for most of Bush's two terms in office, the U.S. "drug war", has not been a priority either. It is widely seen to have been a costly failure. The old policies continue though inertia and the self-interest of the federal and state bureaucracies involved that spend between them over US$50 billion dollars each year; as well as the dire consequences of mandated sentencing in the courts for drug offenses, a criminalization of victims guaranteed to aggravate their social marginalization and chemical dependencies. Many argue the whole drug issue needs to be treated as a disease not a war; and that science needs to be engaged to seek to identify risk factors that led individuals to succumb to addiction as well as recognizing the long term vulnerability to remission individuals face, even after successfully completing programs of detoxification. These are basically questions of medicine and of understanding the functioning of the brain.

Unfortunately Mr. Bush's new "Plan Mexico" looks very like the old "Plan Colombia", also seen to be largely a failure in obtaining its principle objective: to curtail the supply of cocaine by destroying the cartels that controlled its trafficking and by the use of aerial fumigation to destroy coca leaf plantations. In fact, the narco business diversified into the hands of paramilitary groups and international criminal coalitions. Routes and marketing shifted towards Brazil and Europe. And on the street cocaine is today cheaper, more accessible, and purer than it ever was. But for politicians, Rambo is an easier sell - in Brazil no less than in Washington.

KENNETH MAXWELL is a weekly op-ed columnist (every Thursday) for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's leading newspaper.