Losing War Against Drugs - NYTimes.com Re "Afghan Opium Cultivation and Production Seen Rising" (news article, Nov. 13): You report that during the past 12 years the war against production of opium in Afghanistan has cost United States taxpayers $6 billion, and other nations have contributed untold millions more. And yet, from 2012 to 2013 there was a 49 percent increase in production. In sum, according to a Western diplomat whom you quote: "We have failed, we have lost." This should come as no surprise. In 2001, the year the expansive effort to stem supply of opium took off, the secretary of defense-designee, Donald H. Rumsfeld (and who should know the limitations of war better?), told a Senate committee that illicit drug use is "overwhelmingly a demand problem." He added, "If demand persists, it's going to find ways to get what it wants." And what's been done to address demand throughout the world? Shamefully little. For example, Russia, one of our allies in combating opium production in Afghanistan, persists in rejecting "maintenance" treatment with methadone or buprenorphine and consequently offers essentially no treatment to its estimated two million addicts. And the United States is not much better, with an estimated 85 percent of opiate-dependent Americans receiving no care. The writer, a doctor, is president emeritus of Beth Israel Medical Center and has helped develop drug treatment programs in the United States and abroad.