President George W. Bush announced Tuesday his new Drug Control Strategy, saying, “We’re putting the fight against drugs in the center of our national agenda.” The president’s policy rests on three main principles – stopping drug use before it starts, healing U.S. drug users and disrupting the market. Bush said his goal was to reduce drug use by 25 percent in five years, with a 10 percent reduction in two years. Unfortunately, Bush’s goals are unrealistic and his methods are potentially more harmful than helpful.

Perhaps the greatest threat of Bush’s new plan is his commitment to continue and even further U.S. meddling in foreign governments’ business. He has targeted the region most victimized by previous U.S. efforts – South America. Specifically naming Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador, the president promised billions of dollars to help these countries and others fight drug manufacturers. Yet, the United States has an atrocious history of destabilizing governments, funding murderous regimes and causing civil unrest in the name of foreign drug policy.

Bush justifies this global interference by connecting drug use to terrorism. He said, “Make no mistake about it, if you’re buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is going to end up in the hands of a terrorist organization.” And he used the Taliban as an example.

“Just think about the Taliban in Afghanistan – 70 percent of the world’s opium trade came from Afghanistan, resulting in significant income to the Taliban, significant amount of money to the people that were harboring and feeding and hiding those who attacked and killed thousands of innocent Americans on Sept. 11. When we fight drugs, we fight the war on terror,” President Bush said.

This is revisionist history at its worst. The fact is, the Taliban banned opium production. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that under the Taliban, opium production in Afghanistan was reduced from 3,000 metric tons to 74 metric tons. The “lion’s share” of that 74 metric tons, the report said, was produced in the areas controlled by the Taliban’s opposition, our allies. Meanwhile, most Afghan opium is sold in Europe, not the United States, the report says.

So the Taliban wasn’t getting money from U.S. opium users. Instead, it was getting it from U.S. taxpayers, because the United States was giving the Taliban money to “disrupt the market.”

Proponents of the Drug Control Strategy rightfully note that scrunched between these pitfalls is the plan’s one good side – increased funding for drug treatment. Although needed, people should not accept politicians attaching one altruistic intention onto a self-serving policy. Citizens must demand politicians create wholly egalitarian policies that actually benefit the majority of society. This plan clearly does not.