Because like all of our "military" engagements since WWII, we aren't fighting it to win...
In order to win a war, you must bring down total destruction upon your enemy...in reality, we're only skirmishing with them.
Unless and until we're actually willing to rain complete and utter destruction on the "enemy", we're not going to make any progress against either supply or demand.
Alright. Instead of arguing about which approach might work best, why don’t we look at real-world examples and actually see what is effective and what is not?
Saudi Arabia has some of the strictest drug policies in the world. They publicly behead drug dealers.
How’s that working out for them?
Not very well. Their addiction rates are skyrocketing and they’re responsible for 30% of the world’s amphetamine black market.
http://world.time.com/2013/10/29/conservative-saudi-arabia-is-becoming-a-hotbed-for-amphetamines/
How about our prison system? Here we have an environment where every person is under guard and camera. Everything and everyone is searched before entering the area.
Yet, drug abuse in our prison system is rampant. If we can’t control drug abuse in an environment where everyone is under lock and key, how in the h*ll do we dream to control drug use in private homes?
So we can do as you suggest and ramp up the WOD, toss out what’s left of the Constitution, publicly kill anyone caught selling drugs... and we would make the problem worse.
The methods that I’ve been discussing on this thread are proven. Everywhere that drugs are legalized and regulated, drug use has gone down. Fewer children are doing drugs (even in Colorado, marijuana use in children dropped last year.) Fewer people are in prison, more people are permitted to have productive lives, crime drops, drug addiction rates go down and there are fewer deaths from overdoses.
I used to think exactly as you do, but I had to take a step back and look at the facts. The WOD is not working. Others are experimenting and finding more effective ways to deal with the problem.
It’s the Liberal who says, “our solution isn’t working! we must do more of it!” (And their answer was never wrong. There just wasn’t enough resources or money thrown at the problem. We were never extreme enough for their tastes. Heck, this is their public school argument.) Conservatives examine the situation, measure the results, and are willing to change course if our best efforts were wrong-headed.
The WOD has been used as an excuse to militarize our police force, throw out hunks of the Constitution, and raid and murder US Citizens in their homes. And, in the end, we haven’t made a tiny dent on the drug problem. The WOD has created the gangs and the cartels and increased violence in our nation.
The hard line simply doesn’t work in this area. We need to approach the problem with the same techniques that others are finding useful.