The war on drugs

America leads the way on this, and still does mostly, the aim was based on the idea that prohibition works and also strict enforcement of the laws regarding them. Street dealers and those using them became easy targets to take down to show that something is happening. Those arrested and convicted were handed down hugely disproportionate prison terms. Done to send a message that they were tackling drug problems, so middle-class people could sleep safely knowing bad drug users were in prison.

They did move up in their activities targeting the suppliers and trying to intercept anything that was attempted to be smuggled over the border. It is amusing to watch tv programs about custom officers and how they look for narcotics. Then when they find some get all excited about it.

If you stop and think about what they are doing, with excessively long prison terms and employing lots of people to work on the border who stop only a tiny fraction of what crosses the border. It demonstrates that this policy is not working finding any type of narcotic you fancy in most parts of the world is not a hard task.

Then financially they are spending billions globally to follow this policy, in the staff they employ to the huge cost putting someone in prison generates. I would hazard a guess that most countries spend more in enforcement than they intercept before it can get to people…