In order to launder their drug profits of $8 to $12 billion per year in US dollars, the Columbian drug dealers took over the Colombia Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE) and is now their sole source of funds. These drug dollars are made possible ONLY because of the criminalization of drugs.
The BMPE purchases these dollars at discount rates of about 30% and converts them into pesos in Columbia, effectively cleaning the money for the drug dealers. In turn the BMPE makes these billions of dollars available as a commodity for sale outside of any regulated financial system.
Increasingly, these dollars, which are a direct byproduct of the WOD, are being funneled to terrorists looking for anonymous ways of acquire large reserves of US dollars. (During their trial in NY, prosecutors proved that the people responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing received funds from a BMPE broker working out of Venezuela.)
Without the billions of dollars in illicit funds generated every year by the criminalization of drugs, terrorism would not have access to the hundreds of millions of dollars it needs to obtain anonymously. While they would still be able to obtain some money from other sources, it would be enormously more expensive for them, and it would be far far easier for US intelligence to trace its source.
The WOD has produced not one positive effect in this country or the world. It has expanded our government, raised our taxes, imprisoned millions of non-violent offenders on our dime, trampled our constitution, left thousands dead, and it has provided a market for vast networks of criminal enterprises whose reach is constantly expanding beyond the drug business.
And you can still buy any drug in America anytime you want to.