As one war on drugs ends, another is starting. It will be a failure, too

[eridani]

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21650112-one-war-drugs-ends-another-starting-it-will-be-failure-too-wars-dont-work

But even as one drug war begins to wind down, another is cranking up across Asia, Russia and the Middle East (see article). Echoing Nixon, China’s president has called for “forceful measures to wipe [drugs] out”; his Indonesian counterpart has declared drugs a “national emergency”, and in January sent six traffickers to a firing squad. This week Indonesia executed eight more, despite international pleas for clemency. Iran is executing five times as many drug-smugglers as it did a few years ago. Russia is arguing for the spraying of opium-poppy fields in Afghanistan, and is trying to get its neighbours to follow it in banning methadone, an opioid used to wean heroin addicts off their fix. Earlier this year China lobbied the UN’s drug-control body to place tighter restrictions on ketamine, an anaesthetic, though it failed—for now, at least.

Prohibition suits criminal gangs, which enjoy exclusive control of a global market worth roughly $300 billion annually. It is also convenient for corrupt politicians and officials, who can extract rents for turning a blind eye. Several of those whom Indonesia executed this week claimed that judges offered them clemency in exchange for huge bribes. In the main, though, what drives the new drug warriors is the same conviction that animated the old ones: the sincere, if mistaken, belief that cracking down on traffickers and users will make addiction go away. The lesson of the first war is that it will not.

When Peru drove away its coca growers, they moved to Colombia. When Colombia kicked them out, they went back to Peru. After the Caribbean cocaine-trafficking route was sealed, new, bloodier ones sprang open in Mexico, and then in Central America. A shortage of one drug caused by a big seizure seldom lasted long; in the meantime addicts turned to alternatives, sometimes more dangerous ones. When clean needles were hard to get hold of, they used dirty ones. The drug war turned Latin American “cartels” into bands of sadistic, well-financed killers whose reach extended into governments, security forces, judiciaries and jails. Those preparing to prosecute the next drug war need only look west to see what lies ahead of them: more violence and corruption; more HIV/AIDS; fuller jails—and still the same, unending supply of drugs.