The drug war is fought on the supply side. This means that a lot of money is spent to send soldiers, equipment, and training to South and Central America to shoot down planes, burn coca crops, and to educate farmers to grow more "friendly" crops-like Starbucks quality coffee. The drug war is supported largely by fiscal conservatives, people who ought to understand what happens when supply is restricted without cutting demand: prices rise, the potential for profit increases, thus providing greater incentives for suppliers to enter the market.

One wonders what these fiscal conservatives think they are accomplishing. There are several possible explanations: one is that they wish to cash in on the opportunity by supplying drugs themselves. A slightly less paranoid possibility is that these fiscal conservatives understand the importance of subsidizing the military-industrial complex (justified by trickle-down economics) with more contracts for helicopters, and that they wish to support stability and open markets in South America by supplying military hardware to dictatorships. (see Plan Colombia) One other interesting possibility is that they do not want anyone to try to lower drug demand, because people might then realize that the "drug problem" is a symptom, not the cause, of society-wide alienation, depression, and hopelessness which in turn might be caused by pandemic poverty, exploitation, and racism.

People might entertain the possibility that the system, not drugs, is the problem, and those fiscal conservatives just can't have that, now can they?