http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/424/brucewillis.shtml

In what is presumably a bid to gin up publicity for his new movie, 16 Blocks, movie tough-guy Bruce Willis is talking tough about cocaine. In an interview with the entertainment media web site UndergroundOnline, Willis, who plays an burnt-out, alcoholic cop in the new flic, seemed to be in character.

After announcing an deep admiration for police officers -- "they are the last line between us and the wolves and the chaos that's out in the world -- and a "strong affinity for working class people," the multimillionaire Hollywood act told interviewer Daniel Robert Epstein too little is being done about drug trafficking and that he is thinking of challenging politicians to attack the drug trade more aggressively.

"I think what the United States, and everyone who cares about protecting the freedoms that the largest part of the free world now has, should do whatever it takes to end terrorism in the world and not just in the Middle East," Willis said when asked whether he supported violence in real life. "I'm talking also about going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade. It's killing this country. It's killing all the countries that coke goes into," he said in a fit of hyperbole.

"I believe that somebody's making money on it in the United States. If they weren't making money on it, they would have stopped it. They could stop it in one day," Willis continued. "It's just a plant that they grow, and these guys are growing it like it's corn or tobacco or any other thing. By the time it gets here (America), it becomes a billion dollar industry. And I think that's a form of terrorism as well."

If Bruce Willis wants to wage some cinematic war fantasy in Colombia as a means of "protecting freedoms," he might want to talk to the people who would be on the receiving end of his tender mercies. Willis may be imagining Pablo Escobar, but his invasion fantasy is more likely to hurt the thousands of peasant farmers who depend on the crops. It looks like when it comes to intelligent drug policy, the diehard is a blowhard.

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