The drug war is over. Its hawks just don’t realize they lost

The Korean War is ongoing, despite no shots fired in roughly 70 years. The destructive U.S. invasion left more than 3 million dead, many of whom were civilians, with major conflict ending in 1953 — but as the war was never officially declared "over," it technically isn't over.

In the same way, global drug policy — which is often framed in the same violent rhetoric as a full-scale occupation of the Korean peninsula — is like a war that ended long ago, but its belligerants refuse to acknowledge this fact. The drugs won because they could never lose. They can't surrender, but the campaign to eradicate them is unwinnable and thus absurd. War is hell, but as Boy George said, it's also stupid. The drug war is just as inept as many global conflicts in history.

If people want to call this a war, fine, let's treat it like one and evaluate its progress toward "victory." This anti-narcotics machinery forbidding against certain drug use, while essentially endorsing tobacco and alcohol use, has been smoldering for more than a century, with former President Richard Nixon's "official" declaration of the "War on Drugs" some 52 years ago. It has morphed into the U.S. government and the U.N. strong-arming other nations into participating in this charade, less they face steep tariffs or even invasion. Many countries, including Colombia, Panama and Bolivia, have found this out the hard way — don't oppose Western drug hegemony.

Increasingly, the same government agencies who started this fight are acknowledging that they cannot win. A recent report in The Guardian detailed how the U.K. government suppressed internal recommendations to repeal drug prohibition. That 27-page document, leaked to reporter Mattha Busby after three years of fighting for its public release, was crafted by the U.K. government's official drug advisers, who noted that there was "little consistent international evidence that the criminalization for possession of drugs for personal use is effective in reducing drug use."

Two months ago, Elena Whitham, Scotland's minister for drugs policy, said as much, calling on her government to adopt progressive drug policy not dripping in punishment. Whitham noted that decriminalization was "no longer a novel approach," but rather a growing practice "across the world and works well." Recent research has shown that decriminalization is not associated with an increase in overdose deaths. In fact, the opposite is likely true: Overdoses spike following police seizures.

Downing Street was quick to dismiss any chance of adopting this sort of code. Rather, the U.K. government has resorted to banning yet more drugs, most recently nitrous oxide, also called "laughing gas," with offenders caught producing or selling the drug facing up to 14 years in prison.

Nonetheless, Scotland plans to open the U.K.'s first ever supervised consumption site, which allows drug use to be monitored by medical professionals in case of an overdose. Dozens of such sites exist around the globe — in countries such as Canada and Australia — and have been proven to reduce overdose deaths. It makes sense: The harms of drug use, such as overdose, can be avoided if done in the right context. Prohibition makes it impossible to create such contexts.

Supervised consumption is only one of multiple strategies that can be taken up instead of guns and handcuffs. A Sept. 20 report from the U.N. Human Rights Council urged governments to stop punishing people and adopt effective public health strategies that recognize the humanity of drug users.

"Laws, policies and practices deployed to address drug use must not end up exacerbating human suffering. The drugs problem remains very concerning, but treating people who use drugs as criminals is not the solution," Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. "States should move away from the current dominant focus on prohibition, repression and punishment, and instead embrace laws, policies and practices anchored in human rights and aimed at harm reduction."

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A century of data indicates coercion and surveillance are simply not effective tactics to keep people from using drugs, though they are cruel methods. Another recent U.N. report described U.S. jail practices as "an affront to human dignity," highlighting forced labor and the callous practice of shackling mothers during childbirth, disproportionately affecting Black women. Though not everyone winds up in jail for drugs, many people first encounter the criminal justice system through prohibition, which can trigger a cycle that is nearly impossible to break.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that "85% of the prison population has an active substance use disorder or were incarcerated for a crime involving drugs or drug use." Prohibition may not be why everyone is incarcerated, but it's certainly the foundation of our exploitative and sadistic criminal justice system.

There is hope, as prohibition continues to unravel, with reforms for cannabis and psychedelics gaining momentum across North America. But this smacks of a certain exceptionalism, permitting certain drugs while ignoring the fact that "Just say no" just doesn't work on a fundamental level. There are literally thousands of intoxicating drugs that can be cooked up — unbanning a few here and there will take centuries at this rate and won't address the underlying issue. We need a blanket repeal of prohibition altogether, coupled with robust investment in addiction treatment, housing and public health in general.

But we'll never get there until we can force the drug warriors to admit what they already know: This crusade against drugs has failed on all fronts. It's time to declare peace.

It's unlikely, however, that those in positions of power will do so of their own volition. At the end of the day, the issue isn't whether the Drug Enforcement Administration or the cops "know" that prohibition doesn't work. (For the record, anecdotal evidence suggests they're very much aware this is a losing battle.) When it comes down to it, the reason why peace won't easily be declared is because the drug war allocates way too much power enjoyed by the political establishment. It predicates a mass surveillance apparatus, enriches the prison-industrial complex and gives excuses for the U.S. intelligence agencies to prop themselves up in Latin American nations, all while globally eroding civil liberties and failing to make a meaningful impact on what really matters: the health and wellness of people who use illicit substances.

Despite mounting calls, such a Kafkaesque bureaucracy of suffering won't be easy to dismantle. Far more funds are given to enforcement than harm reduction, for example; thus, there are plenty of financial incentives to maintain the status quo. But if we continue to use the same framework — that drug use and addiction are something to wage "war" about — then we must make it impossible for anyone to deny who is losing.

An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Salon's Lab Notes, a weekly newsletter from our Science & Health team.