IN 1971 Richard Nixon fired the first shot in what became known as the “war on drugs” by declaring them “public enemy number one”. In America and the other rich countries that fought by its side, the campaign meant strict laws and harsh sentences for small-time dealers and addicts. In the poor, chaotic countries that supplied their cocaine and heroin, it meant uprooting and spraying coca and poppy crops, and arming and training security forces. Billions of wasted dollars and many destroyed lives later, illegal drugs are still available, and the anti-drug warriors are wearying. In America and western Europe addiction is increasingly seen as an illness. Marijuana has been legalised in a few places. Several countries may follow Portugal, which no longer treats drug use as a crime.

But even as one drug war begins to wind down, another is cranking up across Asia, Russia and the Middle East (see article). Echoing Nixon, China’s president has called for “forceful measures to wipe [drugs] out”; his Indonesian counterpart has declared drugs a “national emergency”, and in January sent six traffickers to a firing squad. This week Indonesia executed eight more, despite international pleas for clemency. Iran is executing five times as many drug-smugglers as it did a few years ago. Russia is arguing for the spraying of opium-poppy fields in Afghanistan, and is trying to get its neighbours to follow it in banning methadone, an opioid used to wean heroin addicts off their fix. Earlier this year China lobbied the UN’s drug-control body to place tighter restrictions on ketamine, an anaesthetic, though it failed—for now, at least.

The new drug warriors: from Iran to Indonesia Prohibition suits criminal gangs, which enjoy exclusive control of a global market worth roughly $300 billion annually. It is also convenient for corrupt politicians and officials, who can extract rents for turning a blind eye. Several of those whom Indonesia executed this week claimed that judges offered them clemency in exchange for huge bribes. In the main, though, what drives the new drug warriors is the same conviction that animated the old ones: the sincere, if mistaken, belief that cracking down on traffickers and users will make addiction go away. The lesson of the first war is that it will not. When Peru drove away its coca growers, they moved to Colombia. When Colombia kicked them out, they went back to Peru. After the Caribbean cocaine-trafficking route was sealed, new, bloodier ones sprang open in Mexico, and then in Central America. A shortage of one drug caused by a big seizure seldom lasted long; in the meantime addicts turned to alternatives, sometimes more dangerous ones. When clean needles were hard to get hold of, they used dirty ones. The drug war turned Latin American “cartels” into bands of sadistic, well-financed killers whose reach extended into governments, security forces, judiciaries and jails. Those preparing to prosecute the next drug war need only look west to see what lies ahead of them: more violence and corruption; more HIV/AIDS; fuller jails—and still the same, unending supply of drugs.

The difference between legalisation and decriminalisation Meanwhile, rules meant to stop opioids leaking to the black market have left the innocent to die in avoidable pain. Multiple-sclerosis sufferers and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy have been denied the relief that cannabis can bring. Some researchers think that LSD (acid), MDMA (Ecstasy) or psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) might help treat depression. But nobody knows, because drug laws have made trials close to impossible. The row over ketamine is an unwelcome reprise. A safe, orally administered anaesthetic, it can be used outside hospitals, even for caesarean sections and amputations. If China succeeds in tightening restrictions on the drug, poor people in countries with weak health systems will suffer and even die unnecessarily.

A better prescription

In the West few politicians have been ready to admit the drug war’s failure—even as they quietly moderate their policy. They need to be honest with their own voters about the misery it has caused. Only then can they make a good case to the rest of the world that drug addicts need treatment, not prison, and that supply should be managed, not suppressed. A UN meeting next year to take a fresh look at the international conventions that shape national drug laws would be an excellent place to start. The first drug war caused devastation enough. For history to repeat itself would be a tragedy.