Sounds to me like the position of Drug War supporters.
“Sounds to me like the position of Drug War supporters. “
The reason the drug war failed is, where there is a demand, there will be a supply. The larger the demand, the larger and cheaper the supply.
Decades ago a mere handful of cartels controlled the flow of drugs into the United States. The cartels controlled who could obtain and import. If some idiot went down to Columbia and tried to buy cocaine the locals would inform the local cartel who would then kill the idiot. It was a near perfect control on who could import. The cartels sometimes fought over territory, but, mostly, they just let each other be. Each cartel could only import so much. After a certain point they reached the point of diminishing returns. For each additional kilo they didn’t make that much more money as the over-supply kept down the price. So, they only imported enough to keep the price relatively high. This also served to keep low-end users out of the market because they couldn’t afford the product.
Then, the war on drugs destroyed the cartels and their iron control over who and how much got imported. The free market took over with individual tourists bringing back a few ounces or sending home a pound or two. Soon, the price was dirt cheap. At the same time, different, cheaper formulations and synthetic drugs were introduced. The cartels reformed into the seething mass of fighting hoods we see today in Mexico.
Perhaps it is time to readdress the situation with new solutions. But the War on Drugs has its onw lobbyists and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. If there was a gleaming solution out there, the lobby would defeat it.