Global War on Drugs: Seven Striking Examples and Their Outcomes
The “war on drugs” has long been declared lost, yet some countries still refuse to surrender. What are the consequences of a “zero tolerance” drug policy? Here are seven vivid examples that illustrate the results of this approach around the world.
United States: Legalization in Some States, but Not Nationwide
Historically, the United States has been a global leader in the fight against drugs. It was at Washington’s initiative that the United Nations adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961, an international treaty banning the production and supply of narcotics except for medical and scientific purposes.
Drug policy in the U.S. has deep ties to racism. For example, cocaine was banned in the early 20th century after The New York Times reported that African Americans in the South, under the influence of cocaine, were assaulting white women. Similar stories were told about Chinese immigrants (opium) and Mexican immigrants (marijuana). World War I led to the construction of another enemy image—German brewers—which contributed to the Prohibition era in the 1920s.
The full-scale “war on drugs” began in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon, amid the rise of 1960s counterculture movements that promoted more tolerant attitudes toward banned substances.
Did it work? The results are mixed. In 1975, four years after the “war on drugs” was declared, 30.7% of American high school seniors reported using illegal substances. By 1992, this dropped to 14.4%, but by 2013, it had risen again to 25.5%.
A major milestone was the wave of marijuana legalization that began in 2012 with Colorado and Washington. Following local referendums, adults over 21 were allowed to purchase cannabis and related products in licensed stores. However, there are still many restrictions: you can’t enter a store without ID, only a limited number of customers are allowed inside at once, and public consumption is banned.
Recent studies show that after legalization in Colorado, the number of teens needing psychiatric help for marijuana abuse did not increase—in fact, it decreased (as it did in states where cannabis remains illegal). By early 2020, 11 states had fully lifted the ban on marijuana. Legal cannabis sales have become a significant source of tax revenue; in 2019, Colorado alone collected $1 billion in marijuana tax income.
In addition to the 11 states with full legalization, 33 states allow medical marijuana with various restrictions. However, at the federal level, marijuana remains a strictly controlled substance. This means that even if you legally purchase marijuana in one state, you can’t take it to another—even if it’s legal there. Doing so can result in serious prison time. For example, Iraq War veteran Sean Worsley, who was prescribed medical cannabis in Arizona for PTSD and a combat-related brain injury, was arrested in Alabama (which has some of the harshest anti-marijuana laws) and now faces up to five years in prison.
While neither President Donald Trump nor his predecessor Barack Obama interfered with state-level legalization efforts, comprehensive national reform is still a long way off. However, public consensus is shifting: according to a 2019 Pew Research poll, 67% of Americans supported marijuana legalization—twice as many as in 1999. Support is higher among Democrats, but even among Republicans, more than half now favor legalization. In July 2019, Democratic lawmakers introduced a sweeping reform bill in the House of Representatives, including removing cannabis from the list of strictly controlled substances and expunging minor marijuana-related offenses. The bill passed its first reading but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thus, drug policy in one of the world’s most developed and powerful countries is highly contradictory: progressive state-level reforms coexist with outdated, nearly century-old federal laws.
Japan: The Legacy of Wartime Stimulants
During World War II, drugs—especially methamphetamine—were widespread in Japan. Factory workers received them to boost productivity, and soldiers used them to strengthen morale. After the war, this led to a real epidemic, which recurred during economic downturns in the 1970s and 1990s. According to historian Miriam Kingsberg, “widespread methamphetamine addiction became a symbol of collective defeat, despair, and dependency… To truly restore sovereignty, Japan had to rid itself of drugs.”
This approach persists today. Possession or use of marijuana can result in up to five years in prison, and producing or selling amphetamines (including meth) can lead to a life sentence.
Japanese people use drugs much less frequently than Westerners. In 2017, only 1% of respondents admitted to trying marijuana. A 2013 survey of 300 rave attendees found that 8% had tried MDMA.
Drug users in Japan face severe social stigma. Public employees and doctors are required to report violations to the police. The stigma is so strong that celebrities caught with drugs are immediately ostracized. According to addiction specialist Kanna Hayashi, “These anti-drug campaigns have a strong dehumanizing effect. It’s extremely difficult for those in need to get addiction treatment or psychiatric support. Once your drug use becomes known, you’ll likely lose your job, be expelled from school, and lose everything.”
Reintegration is difficult: 2017 data showed that nearly half of all drug offenders were repeat offenders. In Portugal, where drug use is not a crime and users receive psychological support, the recidivism rate is only 7.9%.
Iran: Death Penalty Doesn’t Work
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, even alcohol is banned under Sharia law (with rare exceptions for Christians). Despite the threat of harsh punishment—including the death penalty for drinking—many Iranians still consume alcohol, especially in affluent northern Tehran, where smuggled liquor is common. In 2020, when COVID-19 disrupted smuggling routes, thousands were poisoned by methanol-laced alcohol, and over 700 died (compared to 66 in 2019). A recent study found that about one in eight Iranians drinks alcohol despite the ban.
Opium (“taryak” in local slang), however, is treated more leniently. Opium has been part of Persian culture for centuries. In the 1970s, before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran had a unique form of substitution therapy: people with addiction could receive daily opium doses at pharmacies. According to Iranian doctor Arash Alaei, “Opium was dispensed based on strict criteria, including the addict’s age, not just to anyone. This allowed authorities to control the drug flow, protect youth, and help the poor.”
In the 1980s, a flood of Afghan heroin led to an HIV epidemic. Arash and his brother Kamiar (names changed) opened a free clinic for addicts and HIV-positive people in Kermanshah. Their “triangle” clinics spread nationwide and were recognized by the WHO. However, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013), the brothers were accused of espionage and imprisoned. They were released in 2010 and 2011, left Iran, and now work in the U.S. and Tajikistan. “In modern Iran, you never know what will happen tomorrow,” says Arash, who fears he wouldn’t be able to return to the U.S. if he visited Iran again.
Drug traffickers faced the death penalty even before the Islamic Revolution, but executions increased under the new conservative regime. Despite strict laws, in 2009, Iran seized 89% of the world’s opium and 41% of its heroin, according to Amnesty International. That year, 166 drug traffickers were executed (43% of all death sentences in Iran). By 2018, the situation had improved only slightly: Iran still leads the world in opiate seizures (53% of the global total). Studies show that seizing large drug shipments has little effect on availability, as traffickers factor in the risk of loss.
While most Afghan heroin transits through Iran to other countries, within Iran, 67% of the country’s three million drug users (out of a population of nearly 81 million) use heroin. According to a 2019 UN report, Iran has the world’s highest rate of opiate addiction: in 2015, 3.3% of the population used heroin.
Bolivia: Leaves vs. Powder
Bolivia is one of the world’s top three cocaine producers, along with Colombia and Peru. It also holds the record for military coups: in its 195-year history, there have been at least 190 successful coups or attempts. In 1980, General Luis GarcĂa Meza seized power with the help of wealthy drug lords and Nazi mercenary Klaus Barbie. Before Colombia industrialized cocaine production, GarcĂa Meza’s associates supplied Pablo Escobar himself.
This regime was short-lived. After another coup in 1981, the new government invited U.S. DEA agents to help destroy coca plantations. In 1988, under U.S. pressure, Bolivia passed Law 1008, imposing 10–25 year prison sentences for drug trafficking, regardless of quantity. These harsh measures were a condition for U.S. financial aid, as America views global drug trafficking as a threat.
Enforcing Law 1008 was complicated by two factors: Bolivia is one of South America’s poorest countries, with nearly half the workforce in subsistence farming, and many Bolivians grow coca for personal use as leaves, not cocaine. Recent surveys show 47% of Bolivians chew coca leaves, while only 0.34% use cocaine (UN data).
The U.S.-backed law hit the poorest and most vulnerable hardest, overloading courts and prisons. Even after reforms by President Evo Morales (2006–2019), a proponent of traditional coca use, Bolivian prisons hold over 18,000 inmates—almost twice their capacity. According to the CEDD research project, over 10% of Bolivian prisoners are incarcerated under Law 1008, most of them farmers, small dealers, and couriers.
Singapore: 10 Years for a Positive Drug Test
Arriving passengers at Singapore’s airport are greeted by a warning printed on immigration forms: “Death penalty for drug trafficking.” Under Singaporean law, a positive drug test can result in up to 10 years in prison, even if the drug was consumed legally elsewhere. Possession of more than a certain amount—such as 30 grams of cocaine or 500 grams of marijuana—is considered large-scale trafficking and punishable by hanging. In 2019, at least two people were executed for drug offenses, according to Amnesty International. Human rights groups claim that only small-time couriers are executed, while major traffickers avoid punishment.
The government boasts the world’s lowest drug use rates. In 2018, only 3,439 people were arrested for drug offenses (in a country of just under six million). In comparison, Minnesota, a U.S. state with a similar population, arrested over 20,000 people for similar offenses that year.
While these numbers are used to argue that harsh policies work (as in Japan), researchers are skeptical. Singapore’s statistics only count those caught, while most users go undetected. It’s hard to say whether Singapore is truly more successful than the U.S. in the “war on drugs”—or if users are simply better at hiding.
Sweden: Few Users, Many Overdoses
Sweden has some of the strictest drug laws in the European Union, largely shaped by psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who advocated zero tolerance in the 1970s. Swedish law makes no distinction between “hard” and “soft” drugs and criminalizes not only possession but also use.
In some ways, this policy works: only 15.6% of Swedes have ever tried illegal drugs, compared to 45% in France. However, Sweden has a very high overdose death rate. In 2016, there were 590 fatal overdoses—almost 20 times more than in Portugal, a country of similar size where drug use is not a crime. A survey of heroin users in Malmö found that many don’t call an ambulance for friends who overdose, fearing police involvement.
Driving drug use underground leads to increased crime. In 2019, Sweden saw 257 criminal bombings, up from 162 the previous year. Researchers note that most suspects in these cases had prior convictions for drugs and violence, and at least half the incidents were linked to organized crime.
Philippines: Feeding Drug Dealers to the Fish
In Singapore, radical anti-drug measures are carried out within the law, albeit harshly. In neighboring Southeast Asian countries, the situation is different. Ahead of the 2016 elections, future Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proposed a drastic plan to combat drug addiction.
“Forget all those human rights laws. If I end up in the presidential palace, I’ll do what I did as mayor,” he told supporters. “Drug dealers, criminals, and bums—get out, because I’ll kill you. I’ll dump you all in Manila Bay to feed the fish.”
From 1988 to 2016, Duterte was mayor of Davao, earning a reputation as the “Philippine Terminator.” During this time, hundreds of suspected thieves, drug dealers, and even street children were killed by the “Davao Death Squad,” a group of ex-police officers allegedly under his command. Duterte claimed his methods made Davao the safest city in the Philippines, but official 2015 data showed it still had the country’s highest murder and violence rates.
As president, Duterte scaled up these tactics nationwide. In his first year, at least 7,000 Filipinos—mostly from the poorest slums—were shot dead during “anti-drug operations,” according to human rights groups. It’s impossible to know how many were actually involved in drug trafficking or were innocent victims of extrajudicial killings.
In 2017, three police officers kidnapped and killed 17-year-old Kian Delos Santos, who had no prior police record. Despite human rights groups reporting at least 27,000 extrajudicial killings since 2016, only Delos Santos’s death sparked public outrage and government response—after mass protests involving Catholic priests.
Did this policy of terror improve safety? In Duterte’s first year, robberies dropped by 34% and car thefts by 47%, but murders increased by 22.75%. As for the drug trade, it remains robust. Police Colonel Romeo Caramat, who led many anti-drug operations, now believes the crackdown was pointless: “The policy of intimidation clearly didn’t work,” he told Reuters in February 2020. Drugs, he says, are still available anytime, anywhere.
If Duterte’s true goal was to boost his own image rather than eradicate drug trafficking, he certainly succeeded. In 2019, 79% of Filipinos approved of his anti-drug actions, and he finished the first half of his six-year term with the highest approval rating in the country’s history.