Again and again British politicians, commentators and celebrities intone that ‘The War on Drugs has failed’. They then say that this is an argument for abandoning all attempts to reduce drug use through the criminal law.

Peter Hitchens shows that in Britain there has been no serious ‘war on drugs’ since 1971, when a Tory government adopted a Labour plan to implement the revolutionary Wootton report. This gave cannabis, the most widely used illegal substance, a special legal status as a supposedly ‘soft’ drug (in fact, Hitchens argues, it is at least as dangerous as heroin and cocaine because of the threat it poses to mental health). It began a progressive reduction of penalties for possession, and effectively disarmed the police.

This process still continues, behind a screen of falsely ‘tough’ rhetoric from politicians. Far from there being a ‘war on drugs’, there has been a covert surrender to drugs, concealed behind an official obeisance to international treaty obligations. To all intents and purposes, cannabis is legal in Britain, and other major drugs are not far behind.

In The War We Never Fought, Hitchens uncovers the secret history of the government’s true attitude, and the increasing recruitment of the police and courts to covert decriminalisation initiatives, and contrasts it with the rhetoric. Whatever and whoever is to blame for the undoubted mess of Britain’s drug policy, it is not ‘prohibition’ or a ‘war on drugs’, for neither exists.”

And the United States, what’s our excuse? Since the end of WWII we have fought unnecessary wars all over the globe. Meanwhile, “drug overdoses have claimed a devastating number of lives, with over 107,543 deaths reported in 2023 alone in the United States.” Countless families and communities are in mourning annually. Many wonder what’s really going on.

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Belgium’s Largest Drug Trial

10/30/24. A Belgian court sentenced more than 120 people convicted of drug-related crimes yesterday in the largest drug trial in the country’s history. Sentence lengths ranged from one to 17 years for dozens of defendants hailing from Albania, North Africa, Belgium, and Colombia in a globe-spanning drug trafficking operation. 

The case, which began in December, relied on evidence collected after police successfully infiltrated and surveilled the Sky ECC and Encro encrypted phone networks in 2020 and 2021. Such networks consisted of tens of thousands of individuals using modified phones designed for total anonymity, including disabling cameras, microphones, and GPS and using a concealed operating system. The multinational and novel nature of the infiltration, which collected huge swaths of data from entire networks, has prompted complex legal questions and led to more than 6,500 arrests. 

The ruling comes as Europe continues to grapple with sprawling criminal drug networks. Belgium’s major port of Antwerp seizes more than 100 tons of cocaine annually. — CBS News