The Atlantic from July/August has a little piece about how, even though we’re destroying more coca and cocaine, prices for coacaine in the US have been falling. In 1999, global illicit drug market was estimated to be $13 billion at the production level and $94 billion at the wholesale level.
In 2003, the federal government spent $19 billion on the war on drugs and, so far this year, state and federal governments have spent this much. If we’re not going to decriminalize drugs, why not use this money to buy coca and poppies to drive up prices for the raw products?
