The long–extending ‘war on drugs’ began in May 1971 when former US President Richard Nixon actually proclaimed a so-called “war on drugs.” Ever since, the US and the Western Hemisphere have not won such a war, with every proclaimed victory ending up a fiasco. In the 1970s and early ’80s, Mexico and Jamaica pummeled marijuana producers. The production merely shifted to Colombia, along with the rise in heroin production and cocaine trafficking.

The Clinton administration ‘launched the multiyear, billion-dollar Plan Colombia. The Bush administration then expanded Plan Colombia and provided even more funding.’ Colombia did crack down on illicit crops, ‘extradited more than 600 Colombian nationals to the United States, dismantled the infamous Medellín and Cali cartels, and launched an attack on both guerrillas and paramilitary-linked drug emporiums.’ Yet, and in spite of these monumental efforts, ‘production of cocaine in Colombia actually increased, and the drug network remains intact.’

The war on drugs has not been won because of a major anti-drug policy flaw. Its strategies affecting the supply and demand of drugs have not been effective. ‘The cornerstone of US drug policy at home and abroad is to reduce the drug supply (from crop eradication to border seizures) in order to increase the domestic price of drugs. The idea is to deter both potential consumers and producers from entering the drug market.’ The strategies have obviously not worked also because they are based on ‘a lopsided policy of shared responsibility.’

The old thinking that has not been effective is the emphasis on supply control and not on demand reduction.’ After all, what use is burning down crops and seizing drugs when people are still addicted? And that addicted people would be willing to pay for drugs at any cost. This is the reason why the current war on drugs being waged in Mexico is also proving to be a failure. In spite of thousands of deaths incurred in the process, the drug demand from the US – Mexico’s biggest drug market – is still at an all time high. In the end, it is not only about demand style and market economics, but also about the behavior of drug addiction.

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Via The Christian Science Monitor