War on Drugs

One feels totally awed by the dramatic success of the US led war on drugs. Having brought all of the vast sum of knowledge gained by the United States from its voyage into the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s; and due also the obedience of other Western countries in following the US plan, drug pushers are now permanent fixtures on virtually every street corner in many Western citys.

The war on drugs is largely responsible for an industry that has grown from nothing at the beginning of the last century to an $88 billion leviathan by the beginning of this one. Like all wars, the war on drugs as been responsible for the violent death of thousands. Apparently we now have South and Central American states that are virtually ungovernable due to the corruption stemming from the drug trade. We have what amounts to virtually a civil war in Mexico, were drug lords kill thousands in their fight for market share. In Africa drugs passing through on their way to Europe are corrupting Western African governments, and one wonders just how far up the food chain drug money is going in most countries.

This whole mess could have been avoided had the war on drugs been fought by treating addiction as the sickness it truly is. The way the drug industry works is to provide cheap drugs to people until they become addicted, once hooked, the price goes up; followed by the petty thefts and crime that occurs to support the addiction. I London in the early 1950’s there were pushers selling heroin, there were also doctors who provided prescriptions to addicts so that they could obtain their drugs through the national health care system, hardly a profitable venture for the pushers, things were fairly well controlled until the war on drugs changed everything. Well done the war on drugs.