The Core Strategy Of The War On Drugs

Over 40 years ago, US President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global campaign, the War on Drugs. Today, the numbers are in. The War on Drugs is a huge failure, with devastating unintended consequences. It led to mass incarceration in the US; to corruption, political destabilization, and violence in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; to systemic human rights abuses across the world. It negatively affected the lives of millions of people. All of this while we waste billions of dollars every year only to create and fuel powerful drug cartels while the goal of the War on Drugs seems less achievable than ever: a world without drugs. How could this happen? The core strategy of the War on Drugs

The drugs market is not price-sensitive. Drugs will be consumed no matter what they cost. So the effect is to encourage production of more drugs and recruitment of more traffickers, which increases availability. This is also known as the balloon effect: even if drug production or a major supply route is destroyed, the supply for the end user is not reduced. A perfect example of this is crystal meth. The US Government tried to stop its production by strictly regulating the sale of chemicals used to manufacture the drug. This forced big meth producers out of business, but the unintended consequences were that thousands of small-scale operations started all over the country, mostly in small towns and rural communities, using chemicals that weren’t regulated. In response to this, some US states wanted to reduce the supply of home-grown meth by regulating even more chemicals, which reduced small-scale meth production drastically. But the supply of meth still stayed the same. Mexican drug cartels immediately took over and opened big production operations. Their meth was even better than it was before, and they had lots of experience in

For many minors around the world, it’s as easy to get illegal drugs as alcohol. But it doesn’t stop here. Prohibition may prevent a certain amount of people from taking drugs, but in the process it causes huge damage to society as a whole. Many of the problems we associate with drug use are actually caused by the war against them. For example, prohibition makes drugs stronger. The more potent drugs you can store in as little space as possible, the more profit you’ll make. It was the same during alcohol prohibition, which led to an increased consumption of strong liquor over beer. The prohibition of drugs also led to more violence and murders around the world. Gangs and cartels have no access to the legal system to settle disputes, so they use violence. This led to an ever-increasing spiral of brutality. According to some estimates, the homicide rate in the US is 25–75% higher because of the War on