55 years of a war as devastating as it is useless

The war on drugs was declared by then-US President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. The rest of the world quickly joined in. 55 years have passed, tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent. And illegal drugs are now more accessible, cheaper, and more widely consumed than in 1971.

Many police officers (those who haven't been corrupted or directly turned into drug traffickers) believe the war is lost. Others, equally honorable, content themselves with winning battles: seizures, arrests, successful operations. No one with a modicum of sense dares to claim that the war on drugs is going well.

Initially, it was a war against marijuana. In the United States, the myth persisted that marijuana use led black men to rape white women. Since 1937, there had been restrictions on the sale of this substance. In 1970, it was banned by federal law. Now it is legal or tolerated in a large part of the country.

Within a few years, traffickers in Colombia and Mexico found that cocaine was much more profitable. Since 1980, cocaine consumption in the United States and Europe began to grow vertiginously: it was the drug of success, the essential ingredient at parties for those who were then called yuppies (young urban professionals) and were getting rich under the umbrella of neoliberal economics.

At the beginning of the 21st century, a gram of not-very-adulterated cocaine cost between 50 and 60 euros in Barcelona or Madrid. Today, this weekend, the same gram in Barcelona or Madrid costs between 50 and 60 euros. It is the only product that has not increased in price. No matter how many tons are seized, no matter how much consumption increases, supply perfectly meets demand.

Capitán Swing publishing house has just published Kilo, by the journalist Toby Muse, a half-British, half-American journalist who has resided in Colombia for many years. It is an extraordinary report (the best current journalism is found in books) on the exploitation, violence, and corruption caused by prohibitionism.

In the Colombian Catatumbo, near the border with Venezuela, thousands of raspachines –those who pick the leaves of the coca bush, ruining their hands– do their daily work. They earn about 50,000 pesos per day, harvesting about 17 kilos. They put the leaves in sacks and carry them on their backs to one of the many rudimentary laboratories scattered throughout the area, under the protection of some paramilitary militia or guerrilla group.

In the laboratory, each ton of leaves is put into a shredder. The shredded product is placed in large containers and mixed with gasoline. After three or four days, the coca paste is ready: the ton has been converted into 1.5 kilos, with a total cost of less than 500 dollars.

In another laboratory, the kilo and a half of paste is treated with acetone and hydrochloric acid to obtain cocaine hydrochloride. Finally, it is dried in the microwave and packaged in one-kilo packages, for which drug traffickers pay about a thousand dollars.

Until relatively recently, this brick of cocaine was sold to wholesalers, once transported to Europe, for 20,000 dollars. Now the price has dropped to 12,000, while the purity of the product has increased. There is a lot of competition.

How much cocaine arrives in Spain? After the corresponding confiscations, which are around 60 tons annually, it is estimated that about 600 tons remain available.

Each kilo leaves a trail of unimaginable violence, prostitution, corrupt police officers everywhere (in the last two years, a dozen high-ranking officials from the National Police and the Civil Guard have been arrested), of hitmen who recite the hitman's prayer (“Do not allow me to be surprised from behind, do not allow my death to be violent”) at the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Hitmen (said to have been built in Medellín by Pablo Escobar) and who, despite their prayers, have a life expectancy of less than 30 years.

Is all this worth it? Does this war really have any objective, apart from offering dangerous work to police and criminals, and making countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and others in Africa ungovernable? In addition to cocaine and heroin (even cheaper), new synthetic drugs are constantly emerging.

But the war on drugs continues. There is only one possible explanation: the war is part of the business.