“Crack continued to be used in epidemic or near-epidemic proportions in most major cities...”

“Worldwide opium production was 4,157 metric tons,” an increase  of 20 percent in a single year. 
—Drug Enforcement Administration, Aug., 1996 ^[11]

“Despite some successes, United States and host countries’ efforts have not materially reduced the availability of drugs... “

“...international drug-trafficking organizations have become sophisticated, multibillion dollar industries that quickly adapt to new U.S. drug control efforts.”
—General Accounting Office, March 1997 ^[12]

This tragic defeat did not rise from a lack of will or resources.  In the attempt to make America drug free, the taxpayers laid out over $300 billion in the last 15 years alone. To put that in perspective, we went to the moon for less than a third of that amount.^[13]

The underlying problem has always been the basic concept. In retrospect, a drug-free America had no more chance of success than an alcohol-free America. As Mark Thornton of Tulane points out in The Economics of Prohibition, the black market is the purest form of unfettered free-market capitalism. The rules are Darwinian—survival of the fittest—and no matter what you do, the pirates will always be a step ahead. With each failure to stamp out the traffic, the authorities will respond by tightening the screws—the only option available—and the increasing risk will increase the payoff.  And the violence. Which will succeed only in eliminating the timid players, leaving the market ultimately in the hands of barbarians like Capone and