President Nixon, wanting a law-and-order issue for his re-election, initiated our infamous Drug War more than 30 years ago.

Billions have been spent and millions of Americans arrested and imprisoned in an unsuccessful – and counter-productive – campaign to eradicate prohibited mood-altering substances. Among those so proscribed is cocaine, the refined product of the coca leaf, a plant legal for centuries in many South American countries. One of these countries, Columbia – from whom we stole the Panama Canal a century ago – has exacted a felicitous revenge by becoming the main source of cocaine to the U.S. market, producing enough to make it easily available in every American city.

Copying Prohibition, the Drug War tried to control the so-called dope traffic within our borders by using police. Flak jackets were issued, Drug Enforcement Administration teams trained, and local cops invigorated with fast-firing guns, cash and equipment. To little avail. Drugs, including cocaine, could neither be satisfactorily intercepted at our borders nor, once within our borders, could their use be effectively prevented. Twenty years after the war began, coke could be purchased for just over $70 a gram – two-thirds of its pre-drug war price. At that rate of decline, a line of blow threatened to become cheaper than a Starbucks latte.

With the failure of suppression within this country, the Drug Warriors decided to tackle production at the source. Since 90 percent of our cocaine came from Columbia, that unfortunate country has been a major recipient of extravagant and dreadful American subsidies to control the substance at the place of origin.

In the early days this cat’s paw war was the same tired old scheme of police and guns that had been unsuccessful here. It turned out to be not only a dismal failure but also, in the less mature politics of this developing country, Columbian police “soldiers” often turned out to be killing squads who chose for death “rebels” whose connection with the coca leaf was remote – if not absent entirely. Consequently, a nascent civil war was encouraged and, like most domestic quarrels, the situation became confused with geographic, class and economic differences. There were dispossessed peasants, mega-millionaire drug entrepreneurs with their own armaments, members of the national opposition parties and Marxian rebels – all of whom were equal-opportunity targets for each other, as well as for the U.S. trained and paid Columbian army.

Still, the snow continued to flow.

Even a blind dog may realize it is not finding a bone. Eventually, the strategy in Columbia changed. Rather than shooting peasants and other “drive-bys”, the new course became one of crop destruction. The U.S. had managed to destroy a wide swath of Vietnam with Agent Orange – why not use that technique in this noble cause? So the Columbian ground war became an air war. According to the U.S. government, in just four years, contractors (shades of Iraq!) sprayed 1.8 million acres of crop land. In only one season these enterprising gentlemen were paid $322 million and poured on to farmland $91 million worth of Roundup herbicide.

That strategy is now some years mature, but opinions differ on its success. Drug Warriors see the glass as half full, Columbian farmers see it as less than half empty. To a neutral observer, there is no doubt that, even if successful, it has had some unintended consequences. It turns out that 40 percent of the poisoned land was being used for other crops – mostly subsistence for peasant farmers – and lots of Columbians have gone hungry.

Meanwhile, that mood-altering white powder is easier than ever to obtain. In the Big Apple it now costs one U. S. Grant for enough to make the night a happy one – less in constant dollars than when we began the Columbian adventure; less, in fact, than when Nixon made his last flight to California three decades ago.

To put this “prevention at the source” campaign in perspective: Columbia has 40 million people; Gorham and Westbrook about 35,000. A ratio of Drug War monies that have been spent in that semi-tropical paradise would mean about $8 million for these two communities. While the coca leaf is not grown in this climate, another prohibited product is said to be cultivated quite freely. Since marijuana shares with cocaine a seeming invincibility to police control, what technique might be attempted on these two communities to eliminate the dastardly hemp plant?? Could Columbia lead the way?

The thought of aerial spray concerned Lucius Pheremone, owner of a large farm in North Gorham. His cows, he was sure, would object to Roundup on their clover. Consequently, being a conservative businessman, he worked out alternative costs. His math revealed that since both communities are paying about 5 percent on their bonds, $8 million would earn $400,000 a year – enough to hire eight teachers. He believed that these additional teachers might educate enough kids about the hazards of mind-altering substances that use would eventually decline, or at least be monitored under medical supervision.

Which, he argued, would be a far better strategy.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a freelance writer and former Maine secretary of state.