The second boomerang: Drugs

In his first televised speech to the nation on 5 September 1989, President George W. Bush declared ‘war on drugs’, or, more formally speaking, instituted the multi-billion dollar programme known as the National Drug Control Strategy. The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) claims that drug use has been declining: there may once have been as many as 23 million users in 1985. According to NIDA, and contrary to received opinion, three-quarters of drug users are white; most of the rest are hispanic. A lasting solution to the drug crisis will ultimately have to be found on the demand side, but an effective supply side strategy should concentrate not on warfare and ‘eradication’ but on severing the debt-drug link. One fears that the lightning success of Operation Desert Storm may strengthen Bush’s resolve to impose a military and repressive ‘solution’ in the drug ‘war’. The US has graphically given its Andean interventions names like Operation Snowcap or Operation Blast Furnace.