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ONDCP’s Lipsticked Pig

Posted by Radley Balko

Last February, the Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last wrote an unfortunate (if familiar) defense of drug prohibition, dubiously titled “Winning the Drug War: America may be doing it quietly, but it’s happening nonetheless.”

The article reads like dozens of drug war cheerleader articles from the last thirty-five years, claiming that “victory” over illicit drugs is just off the horizon — we need just a little more funding, a little more commitment, and perhaps a bit more wiggle room when it comes to those niggling civil liberties.

Much of Last’s piece seems to have come straight from Office of National Drug Control Policy and DEA press releases, both of which have a history of presenting a rather distorted view of reality (consider ONDCP’s attempt to link recreational drug use to terrorism, for example, of that the DEA to this day claims on its website that alcohol prohibition “worked”).

In any case, to see one example of just how fleeting drug war “victories” can be, consider Last’s claims about decreases in world coca supply, allegedly due to ONDCP’s efforts to spray the Colombian countryside with herbicide:

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