Anti-prohibition v. anti-drug. Two opposing viewpoints portray the costs of drug use and prohibition.
Another question asks whether decriminalizing drugs reduces drug use. Yet, it's unclear whether the current policy of drug prohibition employed throughout most of the world has been effective in reducing drug use.
If one is to believe Wikipedia, the so-called War on Drugs has been an utter failure:
In 1986, the US Defense Department funded a two-year study by the RAND Corporation, which found that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the United States would have little or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of cocaine cartels and manufacturers. [...] The study noted that seven prior studies in the past nine years, including one by the Center for Naval Research and the Office of Technology Assessment, had come to similar conclusions. Interdiction efforts, using current armed forces resources, would have almost no effect on cocaine importation into the United States, the report concluded.
The National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs published its findings on the efficacy of the drug war. The NRC Committee found that existing studies on efforts to address drug usage and smuggling, from U.S. military operations to eradicate coca fields in Colombia, to domestic drug treatment centers, have all been inconclusive, if the programs have been evaluated at all: "The existing drug-use monitoring systems are strikingly inadequate to support the full range of policy decisions that the nation must make.... It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether and to what extent it is having the desired effect."
Similar lack of efficacy is observed in some other countries pursuing similar[citation needed] policies. In 1994, 28.5% of Canadians reported having consumed illicit drugs in their life; by 2004, that figure had risen to 45%. 73% of the $368 million spent by the Canadian government on targeting illicit drugs in 2004–2005 went toward law enforcement rather than treatment, prevention or harm reduction.
Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru from 1990–2000, described U.S. foreign drug policy as "failed" on grounds that "for 10 years, there has been a considerable sum invested by the Peruvian government and another sum on the part of the American government, and this has not led to a reduction in the supply of coca leaf offered for sale. Rather, in the 10 years from 1980 to 1990, it grew 10-fold."
Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting and prosecuting nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005[citation needed](FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the federally-funded Monitoring the Future Survey reports about 85% of high school seniors find marijuana "easy to obtain." That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.
Out of the entire relevant section of the article, only the last two sentences say anything positive whatsoever about the policy:
The Drug Enforcement Administration states that the number of users of marijuana in the U.S. declined between 2000 and 2005, though usage rates remain higher than they were in the 1990s according to the NSDUH.
ONDCP stated in April 2011 that there has been a 46 percent drop in cocaine use among young adults over the past five years, and a 65 percent drop in the rate of people testing positive for cocaine in the workplace since 2006.
Surprisingly, that is a neutral point of view compared to what any relevant Google query turns up. Since that was utterly useless, I turned to the Office of National Drug Policy, which surely must have some data to support the policies they help make. Unfortunately, all the hard data seems to be hidden among a laundry list of publications I couldn't hope to sift through in a lifetime.
I tried to pick out a few that looked relevant, and most sent mixed messages. The executive summary of the 2010 National Drug Threat Assessment states:
Overall, the availability of illicit drugs in the United States is increasing. In fact, in 2009 the prevalence of four of the five major drugs--heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine)--was widespread and increasing in some areas. Conversely, cocaine shortages first identified in 2007 persisted in many markets.
National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) analysts estimate that the overall threat posed by illicit drugs will not diminish in the near term. Although NDIC believes that sustained shortages of cocaine will persist in some U.S. markets in 2010, the availability of heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana will increase, largely the result of increased production of the drugs in Mexico. The growing strength and organization of criminal gangs, including their alliances with large Mexican DTOs, will make disrupting illicit drug availability and distribution increasingly difficult for law enforcement agencies.
It would appear that even United States Drug Enforcement Agency itself doesn't think it can succeed.
But, the world is much bigger than the United States. For a more global picture, I turned to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, specifically their 2010 World Drug Report, also linked from the ONDCP's big list of drug resources. They paint a much better picture. While other sources indicate the problem has gotten much worse, they conclude "the global number of problem drug users is stable."
For instance, this graph indicates that problem drug use has remained relatively stable in many European countries:
In the United Kingdom and Australia, use of most drugs has stayed flat, with a few on the decline:
Strangest of all, UN figures paint a much prettier situation of drug use in the US than even their own sources did:
Perhaps I was looking at it all wrong. My previous data involved drug trafficking rather than drug use. Apparently, the availability of more drugs does not translate to more drug use. Yet, that seems contrary to the goals of drug prohibition.
I'm far more confused than I was when I started this post. Has drug prohibition failed to reduce drug use? If it's not getting better, is it possible that it would be far worse without these policies? Or are things better than the above sources would appear to indicate?
Reminder: The many varied concerns regarding drug use are far more complex than any single question than cover. This question focuses specifically on laws that prohibit the use, sale, and distribution of illicit drugs and those laws effect on the number of individuals who use drugs. If you have concerns about any other facet of drug use, please post another question.
The header image was composed from the Drug War Clock at DrugSense.org and a public service announcement outlining the danger of methamphetamine abuse from the Montana Meth Project. Source footnotes were stripped from Wikipedia quotes but notices regarding missing citations were retained. Graphs were copied verbatim from the PDF of Section 2.1 of the 2010 UNODC World Drug Report.
