Futility of fighting illicit drugs | Letter
Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 9, 2026
Combating illicit drugs is futile since the drug market is a free market and since free markets resist suppression. The drug is the good; the drug users are the consumers; and the cartels are the suppliers.
Simple supply and demand analysis explains the drug market in the price-quantity space below. For simplicity, assume all drug users are addicts. Then demand is completely inelastic, and the demand curve is the vertical curve D. Before anti-drug enforcement, the supply curve is S1. After anti-drug enforcement, inefficient, legal, and risk-averse suppliers leave the market. Then, illegal, less risk-averse, and higher cost suppliers enter the market. The new supply curve S2 shifts leftward from S1.
At the new equilibrium point where S2 intersects D, the street available quantity remains constant, and the street price increases to accommodate the higher costs of the illegitimate suppliers. The money spent on enforcement is wasted. The higher street price causes addicts to commit more street crimes to pay for their drugs. Relevant insurance premiums increase to cover the increased insurance reimbursements. By every metric, anti-drug enforcement becomes a futile and failed policy.
Similar historical anti-market policies follow this economic model. During Prohibition, legitimate producers exited the alcohol market. Alcohol remained prevalent because mobsters became the new suppliers. Elliot Ness and his Untouchables laboriously convicted Al Capone of income tax evasion, but Frank Nitti seamlessly replaced Al Capone without any interruption of alcohol availability. The previous war on drugs with US Navy and US Air Force interdictors proved equally futile.
Mr. Trump’s war on Fentanyl will prove as costly and as futile as previous wars on drugs and alcohol because Mr. Trump ignores medicine, history, and economics. The appropriate approach for Fentanyl addiction is the same as that for alcohol addiction: treatment and counseling. Still, recidivism will be high.
John Haraden
San Juan Island
