The cruel deception of the "drug wars" goes on: Just give us $500 million more to spend on training and equipping Mexican police, said the White House drug-policy director last week, and you'll see progress.

Implicit in that pitch to Congress: If you don't approve that outlay, you're sabotaging the unending battle.

After all, there's fresh leadership in our neighbor nation; maybe the new guys won't just keep or waste the money while looking the other way when smugglers are shipping heroin, cocaine and the scourge du jour, methamphetamines ...

The negative response from some of the Senate's brightest minds is the right one — but for the wrong reason: Vermont's Patrick Leahy objects to acting as "the White House's ATM."

The amount being called for is pathetically small for any serious offensive against the drug trade, so it's suspicious on that count alone. Then there's the Bush administration's unwillingness to call for accountability from Mexican President Felipe Calderón — which, of course, would raise issues of sovereignty.

But all that plays into sub-plots of an ongoing tragedy — one which has stricken so many families in Northern New Mexico and other parts of the nation.

Seems no one on Capitol Hill wants to confront a reality: Drug trafficking, in Mexico and everywhere else illicit narcotics are grown, processed and moved in America's direction, continues to thrive because this is where the stuff is consumed — at whatever cost a protected market will bear.

Keep drugs illegal, make them more expensive by busting the occasional shipment, and the price goes up. Those controlling the supply grow richer; all the more capable of bribing everyone outside and inside our boundaries, from street cops to prosecutors. And those who can't be bought can be assassinated.

Meanwhile, to feed their habits, addicts will lie, cheat, steal, even kill. The law-abiding people and households of our country are violated — and pay taxes for the privilege. In Mexico, more than 4,000 people have been killed in drug-gang violence since Calderón took office and talked tough about drugs. More than 400 of the dead are cops, so in many places there's no law enforcement left.

Neither Mexico's government nor ours can buy enough cannon-fodder for this bogus war.

What Congress can do is invest in education, counseling and treatment — to catch up with, then head off, drug use. When those things are in place, de-criminalize drug possession; make the stuff available, free or cheap, at clinics. De-glamorize it — and take away the profit motive so many vested interests have in drugs.

Who in Congress dares do such a thing?