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On the other side of the world, along the spine of the Andes in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, both the lower and middle classes have begun smoking coca paste, a potent and addictive form of cocaine that costs only pennies a cigarette. "These countries have never had a problem like this before," says Manuel Gallardo, chief of the Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics Matters. "Their people are getting strung out right and left from all social classes, and the governments don't know what to do." Drug dealers are so high-handed in Colombia that last week they gunned down Carlos Luna, the security chief of Avianca Airlines, because he had the temerity to bust a 440-lb. shipment of coke hidden in the tires of a 747 jetliner bound for Miami. U.S. officials are concerned that drugs may provoke enough social unrest to lead to civil war and revolution. In Mexico official corruption tied to drug dealing threatens to destabilize America's southern neighbor.
Although drug abuse is not a problem unique to the U.S., the nation's cultural values and attitudes make it unlikely that the problem will ever be erased by even the most concerted Government crusade. The freedom inherent in American society assures that people will always be able, and often willing, to pursue their desired indulgences, however illicit. A society filled with wealth and the ability to consume, along with failure and despair, provides a ripe market for the world's drug supply, which will always exist as long as there is the demand for it. Experts point to other deep-seated causes that produce a continued national craving for drugs: lack of community, disintegration of the family, moral laxity, the relentless pressure to perform in a fast-paced society. "The real remedies to the problem don't satisfy Americans' urge for a quick fix," says Ted Galen Carpenter of the CATO Institute, a Washington think tank. "It's a long, laborious process." Merely preaching about the evils of dope is no more likely to purify the school- yard than a Sunday sermon about fallen women is likely to make the congregation chaste. Actually, moralizing often makes decadence more alluring. While NBC vigorously protests that only the bad guys take dope on Miami Vice and they come to an unseemly end, public polls show that many people still feel such shows glamourize drug use. Fast clothes and cars may be the toys of villains, but they are seductive nonetheless. In Oakland two weeks ago, many were shocked when the body of a notorious local drug lord, Felix Mitchell, was carried by a gold-and-black hearse, drawn by two bay horses, followed by a long line of Rolls-Royces and luxury cars. Inside the Baptist church where Mitchell lay in his bronze coffin with glittering rings on his fingers, a sound track played Sade's pop hit, Smooth Operator. Mitchell, 32, had been stabbed to death in Leavenworth penitentiary while serving a life sentence for drug-trafficking conspiracy. But in the faces of young people who lined the funeral route were expressions of awe.