Admit it: the war on drugs has failed

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, eats a coca leaf in front of the UN drug committee meeting in Vienna (see video below). He complains about the continuing war on what is a natural product in his country.

We have discussed drugs here before. We have not been prepared to admit that the war on drugs has failed.

I commend this week’s Economist magazine which notes that it was in 1998 that the UN General Assembly committed itself to achieving a drug-free world and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008. What a signal uniform worldwide failure.

The cost of this commitment is a world racked by drug-based criminality that tyrannises whole communities, renders whole countries “failed states” and compromises societies at every level.

Far from eliminating or significantly reducing it, the illegal drug trade has boomed. America spends $40bn a year in trying to reduce drug consumption. This against an “industry” now running at hundreds of billions a year in the US alone.