IMO, no. There is no way to win the war on drugs. There are simply too many people who want to do drugs, and are willing to break the law to do so. If you look around the world, the general trend is towards a liberalizing of drug laws(see Canada; Marijuana legislation and). The US, of course, will be one of the last to move with the trend, as the religous right and the protect-you-from-yourself left* have too much power and think it’s hunky dory to base laws on private morality. Eventually things will change though.
I realize that the left is not the main problem in this situation, but they contribute to the general attitude of lawmaking in this nation.
I completely agree with you that the war on drugs cannot be won. However, I’m confused by two assertions you seem to be making. I will not argue that the war on drugs can be won. I do not believe for a second that our present definition of winning this war will ever come to pass. I just don’t understand some of your logic.
First this:
Do you think drug awareness of the general population is higher now than it was 90 years ago? If so, progress (any progress) might have been made.
But even if there is no concrete progress after 90 years I’m not sure this qualifies as a determination that the war cannot be won. I would guess landing on the moon was unfathomable 90 years prior to it being accomplished.
Then this:
It seems to me that being able to see the end doesn’t need to be a criteria for something having an end.
I don’t think it can be said that drug awareness is higher, given how much of that “awareness” is based on misinformation, propaganda, and occasional outright lies.
In one War On Some Drugs discussion I saw, one parent spent some time complaining that he had to give out significantly more actual information about various drugs than he was comfortable doing – but that he thought that was better than letting the kid keep believing the false data that the schools were handing out.
That article is an interesting read, but LSD simply isn’t comparable with the other drugs being produced. It’s a bad example.
LSD production requires highly controlled chemicals that can be very difficult to obtain. It also requires a skilled chemist proficient in organic chemistry. A how-to guide or a couple of university courses won’t cut it. In terms of difficultly, LSD synthesis is leaps and bounds from a junkie mixing up meth in his bathtub. Also don’t forget the thousands of dollars worth of lab equipment an LSD chemist needs.
Authorities estimate that at any given time, there are less than a dozen clandestine LSD labs operating in North America. Compare that to hundreds (thousands?) of coca farmers spread out across Colombia, vast fields of poppies in Afghanistan, and hoards of small-town American meth producers, and you can see how LSD is a much easier bug to squash.