Fifty years of failure: Time to end the discredited war on drugs

Three former world leaders welcome Joe Biden's initiative on drugs — and appeal to the US administration to champion a similar shift toward harm-reduction policies worldwide

END OF THE ROAD: Drug paraphernalia on the streets at 'our' end of the global narcotics trade: The unwinnable 'war on drugs' enriches crime gangs, and incentivises them to engage in violence, human trafficking, and other crime and rights violations. Picture: iStock

Fifty years ago this week, US president Richard Nixon declared that drug abuse was “public enemy number one” requiring a “tough on crime” approach in the United States and abroad. 

The “war on drugs", which expanded in parallel with the global political, military, economic, and cultural hegemony of the US in the decades after the Second World War, has delivered the exact opposite of its own stated aims.