US War on Drugs

The US says it wants to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan (although it's not making big efforts at doing it since many of its allies in the Afghan government are benefiting from the drugs trade). This is not new; the US successive "Wars on Drugs" have not been effective since the early 1970s, when they were first launched by Nixon. Indeed, as history professor and drugs specialist Alfred McCoy said: "after fighting five drug wars in 30 years at a cost of US$150 billion, Washington has presided over a [fivefold] increase" in the world illicit-opium supply, from 1,000 tonnes in 1970 to between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes in the mid-2000s."