How quaint times past often seem when viewed from a modern perspective. Up until 1914 it was actually possible to purchase from a grocery or drugstore not only morphine, but also opium, heroin and cocaine.  You could even place an order with Sears to receive a home delivery of your chosen substance(s), which was at least a rather more civilized way of conducting your business than is currently the case.  And yet despite the absence of any governmental regulations regarding narcotics, the number of people who fell into addiction was approximately what it is now.  Although it has to be said, in the olden days the public was spared the not inconsiderable problem of drug related crime.  By allowing people to exercise their fundamental right to consume any substance of their choosing and regardless of the physically damaging consequences, was still to the ultimate benefit of society at large.

“War on Drugs” the term was in fact first used by Richard Nixon, way back in 1971.  Though perhaps adding the prefix unwinnable might be more accurate, not to say honest.  Why unwinnable though?  Perhaps a more revealing way of phrasing that would be no intention to win.  Consider that the cost to the public in the US alone in order to fund drug related law enforcement, has been estimated to be in the region of $50 billion a year.  Without their “war” to fight, the respective governments of the world would not be able to justify this huge annual expenditure of taxpayer money.  So unsurprisingly, the last thing they want is for it to end any time soon.  But even worse than this is the resulting lucrative black market exploited by notorious drug barons and their cohorts, who profit handsomely courtesy of these very same governmental bureaucracies.  The ultimate tragedy though concerns a countless number of vulnerable or impressionable young people.  They become trapped through addiction as a result of being introduced to, or coerced into taking these artificially expensive “prohibited” narcotics.  And so the cycle continues ad infinitum.