Last June, the US was celebrating its 45th anniversary of its fight against drugs. However, since the announcement of the war on drugs by President Richard Nixon in 1971, the number of drug addicts in the United States over the years have not decreased. What’s even worse is the number of Americans who die from drug overdoses is on the rise in the United States today. However, the civil body that is tasked with providing drug rehabilitation has recently come to the conclusion that 90% percent of people who are in need of rehabilitation and extensive treatment which would allow them to escapedrug addiction are not receiving such aid. As for those who do receive such assistance, only 30 percent of them manage to return to their regular lives. As for the centers that receive public funding to assist people in their fight against addiction, they are often headed by poorly prepared specialist that are using outdated techniques and ineffective treatments.
The lack of any comprehensive results in the so-called “war on drugs” leads us to an important question: where did 1.5 trillion dollars allocated to fight lethal overdoses, drug addiction and the brutal violence that accompanies this illegal trade go?
For sure, during the initial stages of this lengthy campaign, the results the United States managed to achieve were incredibly impressive. US intelligence agencies cracked down on Colombian drug cartels, put a stop to drug trafficking in Central and South America, managed to deliver a blow to the activities of the Italian mafia, helped to squeeze the drug mafia out of Hong Kong, and put an end to drug smuggling in Southeast Asia …
However, the longer the war on drugs went on, the less it appeared to be an actual “struggle”. All opposition to international drug trafficking turned out to be a global operation to bring its assets under the US control through the destruction of unwanted, disruptive figures and their consequent replacement with “loyal people”.
In 2016 we should take a close look at the statement that was made 22 years ago by President Nixon’s aid, John Ehrlichman, who would claim (emphasis added):
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people You understand what I’m saying we knew we could not make it illegal to be either against.? the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
From the point of view of the Nixon administration, it found a simple solution to a difficult problem. Progressive forces in the late 60’s and early 70’s were quickly gaining political support, and the White House was to bring them down at any cost. Politicians knew back then that they should not allow the American population to support those communities. That’s why they shut them down.
Is there a better way to get rid of one’s political opponents than to paint them as crooks that belong in jail? And since they are using substances that supposedly make them dangerous and aggressive, they can be thrown into jail en masse with little scrutiny or collective remorse, while those who escape this fate would be discredited in the eyes of the population for life.
Today, against the backdrop of a rapidly growing nationwide abuse of painkillers and psychotropic drugs in the United States, along with the legalization of marijuana in an ever growing number of states, we are witnessing a drug epidemic across American society. Once embarked upon the path toward the legalization of the so-called “weak” drugs, American politicians demonstrate to the world that they couldn’t care less about the lives and the welfare of their people. What they’re after are additional profits from this new “gold rush”. Moreover, Washington strongly promotes this new “business” abroad through the use of so-called soft power.
There’s no need to mention the torrent of articles being published across various media sources around the globe about the unprecedented growth of drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan during the US occupation of this country.
So it’s not surprise that under the influence of the US business community, one only interested in profits, the marijuana trade has become the fastest growing sector of the US economy. If efforts being made toward its legalization in all 50 states continues, in the coming years the marijuana market could overtake the organic food industry.
That is why the ruling elites in the United States are out to protect this “business” from any sorts of criticism or attack. One wouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Washington Post has recently published an article that was titled, Russia’s war on drugs is hurting America, which explicitly states that by maintaining the war on drugs, Russia is acting against the best interests of the US. The article would note that anti-drug measures cost America 100 billion dollars a year (one sixth of its defense budge). In addition, the fight against drugs exacerbates social contradictions and leads to the discrimination of African Americans and Latino populations across the US. Drug overdose deaths involving heroin and prescription opioid pain relievers have soared to unprecedented levels. More people died from drug overdoses in 2014 than in any year on record. CDC statistics show West Virginia has the highest per capita rate of lethal overdoses in the nation, followed by New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio.
So if drugs are such a serious social problem in the United States, why is the Washington Post accusing Russia of waging an ill-conceived war on drugs, while noting that the war against drug trafficking harms American citizens?
The answer is simple: Russia’s actions undermine the foundations of America’s narcotic-driven economic power, which has become, in the opinion of even American analysts, the most important sector of the US economy.
But will anyone be brought to justice for this in the United States? Or would the Obama administration gain immunity by legalizing this “business”, escaping justice just like it did with its illegal military interventions in the Middle East, which led to the deaths of hundred thousands of people across the region?
Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
