Irrespective of how many laws we create, drug enforcement officials we field and prisons we build, there will always be a demand for drugs. Never having used them, I don’t have a clue as to why people use drugs, but I do recognize the reality that there is an enormously powerful demand for them.

The second reason why we will never solve the drug problem with our current approach is that we will never be able to eliminate capitalism or the market economy or as it is defined by some other similar descriptor. Market forces are amoral. It doesn’t matter what is being bought or sold; the market has no conscience

In the case of drugs, the demand is so high and the profits are so great that people will enter this business even though they know it is illegal and that it is very dangerous. They know they are risking their lives, but they do so anyway. The object lesson for us resides in Mexico, where thousands have been killed because there is a market with enormous demand and profits that cannot be eliminated by force.

The Colombians seem to have made significant progress in their efforts to eliminate illicit drugs. But now the worst problem is in Mexico. If they too, somehow manage to significantly curtail their part of this scourge, it will simply move elsewhere. The market cannot be checked.