It risks these impacts without an exit strategy for US involvement or any guarantee that military aid will result in strategic success against insurgent forces and drug traffickers. Moreover, this policy will do little to reduce the flow of illicit drugs into the United States. At best, it will displace drug production in Colombia to neighboring countries at tremendous financial, environmental and human cost. These efforts have at times temporarily succeeded in curbing production in a particular country, but have failed to stop the tide of drugs. Diminished coca production in Bolivia and Peru, for example, resulted in dramatic increases in Colombia.
Drugs remain cheap and plentiful within the United States.
Current counternarcotics assistance can undermine democracy and the rule of law, by strengthening source-country militaries' role in internal policing and undercutting respect for civil liberties and human rights. In Colombia, this policy has associated the United States with an army closely tied to paramilitary forces responsible for horrific acts of violence against the civilian population. In the United States, an emphasis on law enforcement strategies has failed to reduce demand or minimize the harm associated with drugs. The number of people who die from drug-related causes has increased every year since 1979. The availability of drugs to high school students has increased.