OTOH, the war on drugs has made an incredibly powerful covert foreign policy tool, in terms of being able to arbitrarily restrict or provide funding, as well as

OTOH, the war on drugs has made an incredibly powerful covert foreign policy tool, in terms of being able to arbitrarily restrict or provide funding, as well as using martial force to control the right to manufacture and distribute illicit substances. None of this would work unless drugs were incredibly profitable… and they aren’t incredibly profitable without strongly enforced artificial scarcity. Simply by turning a blind eye to one group and continuing aggressive enforcement against another the USA can tilt the political balance of power in many smaller nations. When you create a default state of War against most of the world, selective peace becomes your most powerful weapon. Destruction is so much cheaper than building value, it creates a wildly disproportionate incentive to cooperate.