All evidence I can see from the USA is that drug prohibition is alive and well and chugging along. Recently several pain killers were bumped up a schedule level federally(tramadol, hydrocodone) and there was a silly media/political shitstorm over a higher dose hydrocodone pill being approved by the FDA.
The DEA continues to play whack a mole with “research chemicals” and laughably benign herbal products like kratom, either getting them sheduled or calling them of concern. Even as businesses like kratom bars pop up.
Property seizure in even minor drug cases is increasing, no one needs be even convicted property or cash is just stolen from motorists or homeowners.
No knock raids and the use of SWAT teams to do night time raids only seems to be increasing.
Yet when you ask people the general sentiment seems to be that drug prohibition is winding down or decreasing, about the only reason I can find for this is the relatively few states that have medical marijuana or legalized marijuana sales. But even there there are often catch 22 situations where business owners or customers can’t avoid breaking a law, or are unsure of their legality. Or state or federal police are busting people or performing raids anyway.
It seems rather odd that when socially drug use is more accepted than ever, on the legislation and law enforcement side it just keeps chugging along.
If you were a DEA agent and saw the marijuana hysteria subsiding, you might be afraid of losing your job, so you better find something else to prohibit. Or step up enforcement against other drugs.
Maybe we need a National Users Association built on the NRA model.
I question the assertion that “most people” think the war on drugs is winding down. The war on marijuana, specifically, seems to be winding down, as evidenced by the number of states that have legalized it to one degree or another, but I don’t think there is a wide-spread perception of a reduction in the war on drugs overall. Quite the opposite, people are becoming more and more aware of things like no-knock warrants, racist drug sentencing guidelines, civil asset forfeiture, and other abuses of police and judicial power.
I’d also argue that the FDA is, at best, only tangentially related to the war on drugs. Ending the war on drugs doesn’t mean all drugs are totally legal. The FDA would still have an important role in regulating pharmaceuticals, and that means determining what’s safe enough to be sold over the counter, and what needs a prescription. The injustices of the war on drugs are in the enforcement and sentencing side, not (for the most part) on the regulatory side. Adding tramadol to the restricted list does not constitute an intensification in the war on drugs. Using military grade weapons and vehicles on drug raids does.
The use of SWAT is increasingly massive against all relevant crimes–not just drug crimes–it’s both fun for the officers and the police departments need to provide justification for spending all this money. [Someone like myself believes there would be much better payoff spending this money on training on how to deal with the mentally ill, for example.]