Maybe because it has failed continuously and consistently since it was begun?
The whole WOD from the Volstead Act on has been a cruel and expensive boondogle.
It has accomplished nothing useful.
SO9
".... the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses on any given day has increased from 50,000 in 1980 to 450,000 in 2003...."
The WOD will continue as long as it supports the wages of law enforcement, lawyers, prison guards, phoney drug schools, judges, and state thru federal government officials. Imagine what would happen to these ghouls if drugs were legalized but controlled like, say, beer.
Actually, from the standpoint of the government, it has.
The drug prohibition laws are the reason that the federal government is in control of all health care, and the reason health care expenditures have increased from 1.5% of GDP in the 1950s to 15% of GDP today.
In other words, you have the controlled substance laws to thank for making a trip to the hospital a potential one-way trip to bankruptcy.
" It has accomplished nothing useful."
Look at it from the other side. The WOD has built many careers both bureaucratic and political. It's allowed the re-direction of billions of tax dollars and built the largest group of para-military police forces in the world. It's allowed increasing consolidation of power into the hands of violent authoritarians. So if you're a drug warrior or politican the WOD has been a Godsend.
Quite the contrary, Servant. It has been extremely useful in obliterating the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is the gift that keeps giving to the government.
Read through the last 30 years of supreme court rulings, and you'll see that the worst of them have the WOD as a basis.