Monday, April 3, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unsafe crossing neglected
Once again, bureaucraft red tape and apathy have gotten in the way of what should be done. More than two years have passed since four KU students were killed a mile north of Interstate 70, and there is still no railroad crossing sign at the intersection.
After more than a year of deliberation, the Kansas Department of Transportation, the Union Pacific Railroad Co. and Douglas County have successfully planned on-site reviews, conducted meetings to discuss who will finance the warning systems and set dates for the warning system to be installed.
The culmination of these meetings came on July 11 when Union Pacific finally was authorized to purchase the equipment. Now there will be another four months until the construction is to begin.
Meanwhile, the intersection remains susceptible to accidents.
Being thorough is commendable, but the plans these officials made did not warrant two years' delay. Not having a warning system in place was the first place; taking so long to correct the problem is a crime.
Jennifer Hinkle for the editorial board
Exxon's Folly
Alaska, known as "The Last Frontier," has been devoted by last week's rupture of an Exxon Corp. oil tanker.
An Exxon oil tanker that ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound spilled a 10-million-gallon slick that has tainted an area equivalent to the length of California's coastline. The spill is a serious blow to fish and birds and the state's economy.
The tragedy raises the larger issue of the exploration of Alaska's Artic National Wildlife Refuge by the oil industry. The terrible effects of the spill should serve as a warning that the unexplored lands of Alaska are worth conserving.
Thousands of birds have died already as a result of the spill. Many who are familiar with the area believe the damage will be long-lasting and monumental.
The Gulf of Alaska is the crossroads for huge migrations of fish and birds. Many migrations will begin in a week or two. The Copper River delta, at the east end of Prince William Sound, is home to an estimated 20 million migratory birds in late April and early May. The ecosystem there also supports a $100 million annual fishing industry.
But the largest industry in Alaska is oil. Experts say that reserves in the ANWR may number 3.2 billion barrels of oil, with the potential for three times that number.
Large oil companies have been lobbying for the opening of the ANWR for drilling. A Senate committee and a House panel passed bills permitting drilling in the ANWR last year, but neither came up for a final vote. It was, after all, an election year.
Oil company executives argue that a tanker accident is different from exploration. Government statistics show that about 45 percent of the oil spilled into the oceans comes from transportation and less than 2 percent from offshore production
But that may not matter much to the Alaskan economy. Certainly the point is lost on the thousands of fish and birds that have already perished.
U. S. Secretary of State William Seward purchased Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre. The purchase was ridiculed as "Seward's Folly." Since then, the state has returned billions of dollars worth of products to the United States, and to large U.S. oil companies in particular. In the process, a portion of the state's wildlife has been sacrificed.
President Bush said that he saw no connection between the spill and drilling in the ANWR. Yet Bush, a transplanted Texas oil man, professes to be an environmentalist.
The oil in Alaska is a valuable and necessary resource. But so are the state's environmental resources. The balance between the two must be maintained.
Bush should consider whether exploring Alaska's pristine seas and land masses, some of the last virgin territory in our borders, is as important as short-term oil profits.
Jeff Euston for the editorial board
The editors in this column are the opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board consists of Julie Adam, Karen Boring, Jepston, James Fearquhar, Cindy Harger, Jennifer Hinkle, Grace Hobson, Jill Jess, Mark McCormick and Mark Tillford.
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Lack of will hinders drug battle
Since my March 1 column appeared, there have been a handful of letters and even two guest columns disputing my position on fighting illegal drugs.
Most of the responses focused only on my call for direct military action, and one erroneously described my column as a "supply-side analysis of our nation's drug problem," ignoring my lengthy discussion on the necessity of cutting demand.
But more importantly, they regrettably failed to understand my point.
The point being: Indecision and spineless inaction on the illegal drug problem must be replaced by a comprehensive policy that recognizes the need to effectively fight both supply and demand battles. Current efforts are blatantly inadequate, and if decisive action is not taken immediately, our nation will surely encounter grave consequences.
And although I strongly believe the only winning strategy is to fight the drug war on two fronts, the letter writers blindly assert that the enemy will be able to resist with is demand. That claim is dangerously naive
The respondents took exception to my call for utilizing the military to its fullest extent, particularly intervening in the major problem nations, and to their efforts of supporting America. But I solidly stand by my position.
The military should not be seen as some forbidden evil or all-out invading force. It should not be seen as a cure-all, either, as I stated in my previous column.
Instead, the military should be seen for what it
Christopher Wilson
Staff columnist
- a necessary tool that could destroy drug labs, eliminate planes and boats that provide transport and provide increased participation in interdiction at our borders.
William Bennett, drug czar, has made a similar proposal to President Bush, but Bush has chosen to stroke the problem nations with lame words of encouragement instead of action.
Maybe most important, though, a show of force by the United States might finally open the eyes of Latin American officials and drug kingpins. It is time that those so-called governments realize that we will not stand for their complacency and failure any longer.
The facts supporting my position are clear: During the past two years, drug production in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador increased at the alarming rate of 7.2 percent. And during that time, efforts to stop drug production were increased in these countries. But if we judge them by what really matters, the results, then those four countries continue to go in the wrong direction.
Some of the basic reasons behind this failure are simple.
First, a recent State Department report concluded that drug kingpin within those nations.
particularly Colombia, have so completely paralyzed the criminal justice systems through bribes and threats that it has become "virtually impassable." In 2017, let alone dent their powerful organizations.
Second, the governments of the problem nations are severely outgunned, outmanned and generally have little effective influence over the situation.
And quite importantly, the coca crops that produce the illegal substances are a large part of each of the drug exporting nation's economic base. That has led their governments down the path of failure because eliminating those crops would send the nations into economic turmoil, and in many instances, it would be political suicide.
But this is where I differ from the letter writers.
My first and most pressing concern is the well-behalden of the United States and not whether some peasant in Colombia or anywhere else has a cash crop. And while I realize that economic problems in Latin America affect our nation, it is easy for me to find problems and concerns should take precedence.
I believe that we must institute aggressive policies that attack both supply and demand problems. Instead of listening to those who only want to profit from their own solutions of their own, we must act decisively with all available resources. That is the only real way to win the war on illegal drugs.
- Christopher Wilson is an Olathe senior manager in political science and personnel management.
Drug production: U.S. is just as guilty
I would like to add my 2 cents to the ongoing discussion in the Kansan about illegal drugs. March 1 in the Kansan, Christopher Wilson said our strategy "should include military intervention in areas such as Columbia and New Mexico, so that going to stop drug production." But that is not true; many Colombians have given their lives to combat their country's drug problem.
U. S. cigarette producers are pushing in Latin America and elsewhere a drug far more dangerous than anything coming out of Colombia or Bolivia. In Uruguay, more people die of lung cancer than any other kind of cancer. And the U.S. government is using strong-arm tactics on small nations to help merchants. A letter from Thailand in the March 2 New England Journal of Medicine described how U.S. diplomats threatened Asian countries with economic sanctions if they didn't further open their markets to U.S. cigarette producers.
Furthermore, the U.S. government, in its never-ending holy war against communism, has repeatedly assisted international traffickers in narcotics when it was politically expedient. That could have been the case, but it was during the Vietnam War and apparently in Latin America during Reagan's presidency.
Wilson also suggested that in order to attack our drug problem at its "source" (which is Bolivia and Colombia, if I read him correctly) we should "roll up our sleeves and unlabor ally stein in."
Michael A.
Vance
Guest columnist
The United States has never needed excuses to step in unilaterally and bully poor people in Latin America; our Nicaraguan policy demonstrates that.
Wilson's ethnocentrism is clear. By his logic Urugua would be justified in unilaterally stepping in to clean up the tobacco cartel in Durham, N.C. Such intervention might not be necessary and it does not understand how it feels to be a citizen of one of the countries Uncle Same claims is his backyard.
I don't believe the drug problem is much worse than in the past. The difference is that anti-drug hysteria has been whipped up in a public blitz of impressive magnitude. The blitz is sustained by the bandwagon effect and by those vested interest in drugs as a politicizing tool to tell others what to do and scientist/entrepreneurs who will receive fat government contracts with expanded drug testing.
"The casual drug users are the main impediment blocking progress on this issue," said Paul Deyen, a consultant with Kaisan. "Those weak and self-indulgent individuals are against tougher enforcement and
increased drug testing."
Tougher enforcement? In many states private property has been seized, without due process, when minute quantities of illegal drugs have been found. In Missouri, an elderly man might lose his farm because someone else grew marijuana (gasp!) on it. The prosecutor admits that the owner didn't grow the marijuana but still wants the land because, well, he should have known about it and stopped it (Kansas City Times, December 3, 1988).
Not that it's anybody's business, but I am not one of Shea's "weak, self-indulgent casual drug users." In fact, I discourage drug use and believe much self-indulgent behavior to be harmful. In particular, I oppose the belief that it is proper to indulge in the pleasurable pastime of persecuting others for making decisions we don't like regarding their personal behavior.
There will be but one casualty in the war on drugs; our rights and those of foreign peoples about which we, quite frankly, have never given a damn. Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing about mandatory drug testing on March 21, put the drug problem in its proper perspective and said it would liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to end."
I hope that before people jump on the hard drug bandwagon, they will reflect on just how hard it will be to regain those liberties that, for the moment, appear too extravagant to endure.
Michael A. Vance is a visiting assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed