The Growth of the International Industry of Marijuana Prohibition:

Even after the Iran/Contra scandal of the 1980s, the links between the international drug industry and the prohibition enforcement administration remain mysterious. They appear to feed off each other. The prohibition administration needs a strong illegal drug market to get more money, and the illegal drug market grows with the growth of the prohibition enforcement.

The prohibition of marijuana has produced three consequences on the growth of the international drug industry. First, it has resulted in the growth of organized crime because amateur dealers cannot resist the repression of anti-drug police. Richard Cowan makes it clearer: "The law cracks down on the supply," he writes, "driving the amateurs out of business and leaving organized crime in control, now with even higher profit margins and with connections to corrupt law enforcement. At this point the illegal market has attracted the people capable of making it an institution including some who wear badges."

The second consequence of the marijuana prohibition is that drug dealers have preferred hard drugs for a variety of economic and practical reasons. For the same risk, the profit is higher on crack than on marijuana. And, it is easier to transport cocaine than marijuana!

The third trend is the most troubling. It can be best assessed from the example of some third world countries where marijuana or opium have been traditionally produced and used as a recreational drug. The prohibition has not only resulted in the growth of hard drugs and the creation of organized crime as said before but has had other effects as well. In many of these countries, the drug market has become a political force, by far stronger than any other economic and political sector of the society. This force has eventually been used even by prohibition enforcement administrations in order to control rival organizations, to control or supply political guerillas with arms, etc. It was the case in Pakistan where opium had been used for centuries by peasants without any major economic consequence. Until it was banned at the end of the 1970s. Then heroin proliferated as a consequence of the ban and drug cartels erupted. It is estimated that one and a half million Pakistani are regular heroin users. And that is not the only consequence. According to reliable UN reports, it is the Pakistani heroin money that helped finance the Afghan war against the USSR with the support of the CIA.

See 'How the Establishment Media Suppresses Coverage of CIA's Hard DrugTrafficking', by Giancarlo Arnao, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Oct.- Dec.1988. [So now governments can borrow on the drug market as they used to borrow from the IMF!]

There are statistically reliable figures which support the argument that legalization of marijuana can help invert these three trends. See: How the Narcs Created Crack, by Richard C. Cowan, National Review Magazine, Dec. 5, 1986.