The utter futility of the war on drugs is underscored by this chart, which shows the number of regular users (“past-month users”) in the United States aged 12 and older. Not only has the number of American users of illegal drugs not changed significantly, but more substantial declines in demand for a specific substance often occur only as a result of public awareness of the risks associated with its use.

Examples include the crack epidemic at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, or the fentanyl epidemic, during which many opioid users chose to switch to methamphetamine, which was less frequently mixed with fentanyl. By contrast, law enforcement interventions, broad anti-drug operations, or legislative changes have essentially no impact on the number of drug users.

Perhaps the clearest example of a completely ineffective drug policy is fentanyl itself. When it began to be included in surveys in 2022, it became evident that only a negligible share of users knowingly consume it. Nevertheless, fentanyl has claimed nearly half a million lives in just fifteen years. The problem, of course, is that users of cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin do not have access to a legal and strictly regulated market where they could obtain these substances without unwanted fentanyl.

Throughout this entire period, however, not a single lawmaker has emerged with such a proposal. If one were to heed the calls of countless experts and propose the legalization of even just cocaine, ordinary voters would make their views on such an idea unmistakably clear in the next election. And that is precisely what the entire drug war on truth is about.