"War on Drugs" Has Been a Stunning Defeat
Inflation adjusted, a gram of cocaine in the U.S. today is 90% cheaper than it was in 1982.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” -George Orwell, 1984.
I’ve long had the perception that the modern state has little interest in winning wars. The point of the war making enterprise is to keep it going to feed all the financial, industrial, and political interests that benefit from war. The drama and emotions of war also keep the people distracted from thinking about the state of things at home.
The “War on Drugs” is a case study of how this game works. Major DEA campaigns against cocaine trafficking began in the early eighties. In 1982, the average retail price for a pure gram of cocaine was $433 ($1,500 in today’s dollars). Today, a pure gram of cocaine sells for an average of $150.
In other words, despite over forty years of “war” against drug traffickers, cocaine is now 90% cheaper in the United States than it was when the war began. On a per capita basis, cocaine is not as popular now as it was in the 1980s, but the plummeting price is still primarily a function of increasing production and distribution efficiency.
I suspect that the point of the “War on Drugs” is not to win it, but to keep it going. Keeping it illegal and maintaining some barriers to its entry into the country obliges cartel bosses to pay bribes to U.S. officials and politicians.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if a fair amount of U.S. enforcement action—that is, taking out some traffickers instead of others—is for the benefit of the cartels whose business isn’t affected. They don’t need to eliminate certain competitors because the U.S. does it for them.
As the ancient Stoic philosophers remarked, most of our misfortunes—as individuals and as nations—are not the result of others, but of our own lack of discipline and purpose. We are often tempted to blame others for our problems instead of taking a hard look at ourselves and doing the difficult work required to overcome our vices and addictions.
Politicians frequently talk about "evil” foreigners and villains because it’s far easier to do so—and to allocate funding to wage war on them—than to try to fix our own problems at home. Pointing the finger at other “bad guys” is also an expedient way for politicians to direct scrutiny away from themselves.
Oh but this "WOD" been a grand success for those who received all the salaries and benefits and pensions from working for the government, and also for those who got the many, many lucrative government contracts for consulting and equipment supply & etc etc.
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I'm old enough to remember all the crackdowns on pot growers, dealers and even kids for smoking the stuff. Oh, but then all of a sudden it didn't matter quite so much anymore and you can now buy your favorite flavor from a shop in your local strip mall. And meanwhile, Pfizer can produce whatever junk for megabucks and entice people, and get the government to mandate people, to inject it into themselves.
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Now the government runs the drug trade, complete with tax payer subsidized distribution. My son was murdered in April 2025 by a government supplied addict who killed and robbed him in return for his kindness. "Harm reduction" they call it... and supply hard dope to all the losers at tax payer expense. No mercy for drug dealers from me.