The war on drugs is not a war on substances. It’s a war on people — especially poor people, racialized communities, and anyone who dares to exercise bodily autonomy outside state-approved intoxication (read: alcohol and pharma). After more than 50 years of this disaster, the only honest policy conversation left is this: prohibition has to…
Governments love to say “drugs are dangerous.” What they mean is: your drugs are dangerous. Theirs are just “regulated markets,” “pharmaceutical innovation,” and “tax revenue opportunities.” The war on drugs was never about safety. It’s about control, profit, and who’s allowed to get high — and who gets a criminal record for doing it. We’ve…
The biggest drug problem on Earth isn’t cocaine, fentanyl, meth, or heroin. It’s prohibition. Decades into the so-called “war on drugs,” we’re drowning in overdoses, mass incarceration, contaminated supply, and militarized policing. The only clear winners are cartels, corrupt officials, and the industries that profit off cages and misery. The losers? Ordinary people whose bodies,…
Let’s stop pretending the “war on drugs” is about health, safety, or morality. It’s about control. It’s about power. And it’s about who’s allowed to profit from altering consciousness — and who gets a SWAT team at 5 a.m. for doing the same thing. In one corner: pharmaceutical giants pushing addictive opioids, alcohol companies sponsoring…
Mr. President,You’ve made it known — repeatedly, proudly, sometimes with the enthusiasm of a man announcing a new hotel — that you ended more wars than any president in modern history. You brought troops home. You did what leaders before you said was impossible. And you were right to be proud of that. But there’s…
This academic article reveals how criminalizing the opium poppy turned medicine into crisis—and how legal cultivation could end the opioid epidemic once and for all. Lessons from Portugal, Switzerland, and history show: prohibition kills, cultivation heals.