Not just war, but “total war” because it’s that much more macho. Sort of like taking the dial up to eleven. Just in time as the others are starting to realize that such programs have been a complete flop and expensive. It’s been great for pumping cash into defense contractors, privatized prisons and the hands of third world politicians but there are some crazy types out there that question how valuable it has been to society. The Guardian:

Drug dealers are to be “treated like serial killers” and could be sent to forced labour camps under harsh laws being drawn up by Russia’s Kremlin-controlled parliament.

Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the state duma, the lower house, said a “total war on drugs” was needed to stem a soaring abuse rate driven by the flow of Afghan heroin through central Asia to Europe.

Russia has as many as 6 million addicts (one in 25 people). Every year 100,000 people die from using drugs, Gryzlov said in a newspaper. The scale of the problem “threatens Russia’s gene pool”, he said. “We are standing on the edge of a precipice. Either we squash drug addiction or it will destroy us.”